


A Theory of Glass

by Snegurochka



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-06
Updated: 2006-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:30:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snegurochka/pseuds/Snegurochka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The untold story of the battle at the Department of Mysteries is that when Sirius went through the veil, Remus went after him… and came out in a different reality. Now he must find Sirius, put three disrupted worlds back in place, and ultimately decide which one is real – and which one he wants to stay in.</p><p>22,000 words. NC-17. Remus/Sirius, Remus/Bill, Sirius/Lucius (and also starring Luna Lovegood as herself). Written for merry_smutmas. November 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Theory of Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with Sirius's death in canon and also has character death within alternate realities. Beware of AU scenarios (see summary), but overall this is not actually an AU story. Thanks to busaikko, dora_the_nymph, islandsmoke, and magnetic_pole for the beta work.

The battle raged around them, as that popular phrase went, and Remus did the best he could in the circumstances, firing off jets of green and red and sometimes gold from his wand and hoping they hit the right targets. He'd done this sort of thing before, after all, though not for fifteen years.

Time can be funny that way.

_One_.

He hurtled up the staircase for a better view of the action. Bellatrix caught his eye and snarled at him before aiming her wand at Tonks. He cursed as Tonks toppled down the stairs and into a heap below.

_Two_.

The children, _God_, we've got to get them out of here.

_Three_.

He ducked a jet of light from Kingsley's wand, hitting the floor and hearing Sirius shout at Harry to run.

_Four_.

Harry and Neville scrambled up the stairs as Remus ran down them again, his wide eyes fixed on Bellatrix.

_Five_.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" a sarcastic voice rang out. Remus lunged forward. _Don't taunt her, you fool!_

_Six_.

A new flash of light, maybe red, maybe green. Remus's world slowed to a crawl, his legs paralysed as though stuck in tar.

And on the seventh second, Sirius died.

*

On the eighth, Remus flung out an arm and grabbed Harry around the chest, tugging him back like a fish hook. "He's gone," he whispered to the boy, then shoved him in the opposite direction and signalled for Kingsley to take him.

The veil fluttered as though disturbed only by the slightest breeze, not by the weight of a full-grown man. Seconds slowed to minutes, weeks slumped into years. Remus stared hard at the flimsy fabric.

*

_Nine_.

_I told you I'd never let you go again, didn't I?_

He jumped.

* * *

**i. looks like freedom but it feels like death | it's something in between, i guess**

The air pulsed around him, shifting to accommodate him as though he'd stepped into a bubble. _Breathe_, he ordered his frantic brain. _There's air here. Just breathe it_.

"Padfoot?" he called anxiously into the colourless air surrounding him. A glance over his shoulder proved a rapidly growing fear: the veil was gone. The same haze that filled the space in front of him had also obscured all evidence of where he had come from.

No man's land.

"Remus?"

He jerked his head around and then wavered on the spot at the sight pushing forward out of the mist towards him. He flung his right arm out on instinct, searching to steady himself, but it caught nothing but air.

"Whoa!" the voice chuckled, and then Sirius's arms were around him, holding him close and keeping him upright.

Remus gazed at him, his lips falling open in disbelief – not because Sirius should have been dead and clearly wasn't, not because Sirius seemed to have no discomfort with their murky surroundings, but because standing before him and holding him tightly was not the same tired, sunken man who had fallen through that veil.

It was Sirius Black, age seventeen.

His lips curved in that maddening pseudo-smirk he'd always worn back then, as though the world was just one big joke and he was the only one who knew it. His hair fell in a thick, black cascade across one eye, curling up a bit at the tip with a casual sort of grace that Sirius didn't even have to try to achieve. Remus was suddenly ambushed with memories of the thousands of times he'd pushed that lock of hair out of the way so he could feel Sirius's eyes on him, or the times he'd traced the curve of the smirking lips with his fingers until Sirius closed his eyes and moaned Remus's name.

"All right?" he asked, breaking their tranquil silence and ensuring Remus was firmly on his feet before releasing his hold.

"Yeah, just… yeah. I'm all right."

"Come on, I'm going to be late for the match." Sirius grabbed his hand and pulled him along as he started striding forward. As though releasing a pause button and rushing to catch up with the action, time hurtled past him and he found the mist fading away. "Who were you calling for, by the way?" asked Sirius over his shoulder.

"What? You." Remus rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. "I was just… looking for you."

Sirius laughed, that harsh bark he always used when he was truly amused. God, Remus had heard it so rarely since Azkaban. He felt his chest tighten and he squeezed Sirius's hand as they walked. "I'm right here," Sirius said with a smile. "But fuck, I'm late." He released Remus's hand and sprinted forward, calling over his shoulder, "See you after the match!"

He disappeared over a hill and Remus's feet slowed in the grass. His mouth gaped open a bit as he looked around. The Quidditch pitch. Students streaming towards the stands. He whirled around to scan the surrounding area. Hagrid's hut. The Lake. He couldn't see the Whomping Willow from where he was, which was a bit odd; it should have been right beside the Lake. But no matter, he would have plenty of time to look around later – hopefully. He drew in a deep breath and felt a warm surge of happiness fill him, silently thanking whatever gods had given him the courage to jump through that veil.

He was back at Hogwarts, and Sirius was with him. Everything would be fine now.

* * *

An hour ago Remus had been in one of the worst battles of his life, and after two wars, that was saying something. But now he was seventeen and following a crowd of students back to the castle after a Quidditch match. It was pure madness, but there were so many questions to ask that Remus found himself avoiding all of them. All he could think about was Sirius.

_He's not dead. That's all that matters_.

He hung back from the crowd, making his way idly towards the change rooms with a smile on his face as he continued to try to wrap his brain around the notion that _Sirius played Quidditch_. And that he was good, too. Only a tiny part of him bothered to wonder why James hadn't been in the match. Perhaps things were just a bit different now, and Sirius played Quidditch while James did not. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps Snape had spiked his pumpkin juice with testicle-rotting potion again.

He smiled to himself as he walked. Ah yes, those were the days. He would have to remember to ask Sirius about it later.

After waiting for the other players to file out, slapping each other on the back and celebrating a job well done, he slipped into the change rooms. He probably wasn't supposed to be there, but fuck it. He wasn't supposed to be _here_ at all, so he didn't figure that sneaking a look at Sirius's new Quidditch-playing body would matter.

He might as well think about that, because it was too hard to think about the other things: the way they had argued before the battle; the way Sirius had stormed out of Grimmauld Place and headed for the Ministry without even saying goodbye; and then… _God, no, don't think about it_… the way the laughter died on his face as he fell backward. Remus steeled his jaw as he made his way through the steam of the change rooms. _Don't think about it_.

Sirius was heading towards the shower with a towel tucked around his waist, the saunter that only comes from victory in his step. Remus quietly followed him at a distance, his lips dry and his conscious mind raging with memories of what it used to be like between them, not in Quidditch change rooms but in other dark and secret corners of the castle, when they would push up against each other, clutching and grinding, Remus barely able to believe how quickly Sirius could get him hard and aching and ready to fuck.

_Think about this instead. Oh God, yes, just think about this…_

He exhaled a slow breath now and watched Sirius turn the water on, letting the shower begin to spray over his hand as he tested the temperature. The last of the other players filed out and unexpectedly, Sirius called over his shoulder, "You coming in or what?"

Remus grinned, crossing his arms and leaning back against the opposite wall. "In?"

A slow smile overtook Sirius's features as a tongue snaked out to lick his bottom lip. "_In_," he repeated.

Remus didn't move for a moment, savouring the way Sirius was looking at him, steam beginning to billow around him and his lips red and parted as his eyes dropped down Remus's body and back up.

Only the sound of water splashing on stone filled the room.

Then, with a predatory pounce and an exasperated moan, Sirius lunged at him and grabbed the front of his shirt, hauling him into the shower and pressing him hard against the wall. "God, Remus," he moaned. "Don't just stand there looking at me like that." He pushed his hips forward and brought his hands up to frame Remus's face.

"Can't shower with gloves on," murmured Remus, glancing at the fingerless gloves and arm shields Sirius still wore from the match.

"Fuck it," breathed Sirius, and then he attacked Remus's mouth. Rough fingers and the leather of the gloves raked through his hair and he felt Sirius's thumbs slide down his sideburns, anchoring their bodies together as the kiss deepened.

Remus dropped one hand to Sirius's arse and pulled him in closer while the other slid under the towel where it was fastened around his waist.

"God, come here," Sirius murmured into his mouth, his breath hot and ragged. He pushed Remus into the wall of the shower, his back arched and his hips pinning him.

"I'm here," he whispered before finding Sirius's lips again. _I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere_. It was just as he remembered it: Sirius warm and hard and pressed up against him, mouth moving over his and thick tongue licking at his own. It was the same as it used to be, but _better_. This Sirius was strong and happy and fucking sexy as all hell, sauntering around that change room with nothing but that towel clinging to his hips and those arm shields showing off his biceps.

He was _hotter_ than he'd ever been before, Remus was sure of it, and he radiated a confidence Remus had almost forgotten he used to have. He'd displayed none of that swagger since Azkaban, none of that arrogance and charm and fuck-the-world attitude that had made Remus fall in love with him in the first place – when he was sixteen years old and blindsided by the urge to wrestle his best friend onto a bed and fuck him till they were both boneless.

Remus groaned loudly now and tugged harder at Sirius's towel, reaching two fingers inside to brush against the tip of Sirius's cock. Sirius gasped in response, tightening his hands in Remus's hair and arching up into his touch.

Remus broke off the kiss and leaned in close to Sirius's ear. "You slag," he whispered. "You want it right here, don't you?"

Sirius grunted, letting his head fall to Remus's shoulder as the shower spray planed off his back.

"What do you want?" murmured Remus, his fingers still only lightly brushing the hard cock under the towel.

"Fuck," muttered Sirius, his hands pressing against Remus's chest now.

Remus remembered an old trick he used to do that always drove Sirius wild, that could make Sirius come in _seconds_ if Remus did it just right. He wondered if it would still work. "You want it?" he breathed in Sirius's ear. He gripped the towel and counted to three before tearing it off and dropping it into the pooling water beneath them.

"God, yeah," Sirius whimpered, his hands flying to Remus's trousers now and unfastening them as quickly as possible.

"Wait," Remus said, placing all his fingertips against Sirius's wet, bare chest and pushing him back lightly.

Sirius was silent, his lips parted and taking in ragged breaths as he watched Remus with hard grey eyes. Water drops snaked down his muscular arms and over the hard plane of his chest, his black hair wet and slick. He looked like a god, standing there naked, dripping, and fully erect, his cock red and angry and straining towards Remus's hand. He was fucking gorgeous.

Remus ran his fingers lightly up the side of Sirius's cock, watching with satisfaction as Sirius's head fell back and a shiver rippled through his body. Remus did it again, just the barest touch, just a soft skim of fingertips. After a third time, Sirius let out a groaning sob of frustration, his face flushed and his entire body shaking.

"Remus…" he warned in a low voice as the steam billowed around them.

Oh yes, he was almost there. Just like old times. Remus shifted his hips to line up Sirius's cock against his own, jutting out from his unfastened trousers. He wrapped the ghost of a fist around them both but resisted applying any pressure. He leaned in towards Sirius again and sucked on his earlobe, letting the tip of his nose brush against the sensitive shell of Sirius's ear.

"Say please," he murmured, and Sirius groaned loudly.

"Oh fuck, _please_," he begged, pushing up into Remus's hand, and that was it, that was what Remus wanted to hear.

He tightened his fist around both their cocks and pumped hard, the friction hitting him in a jolt up his thighs and straight to his balls. The water streamed over Sirius's shoulders and chest and pooled around their cocks, making an obscene squelching sound as Remus squeezed them together.

Sirius braced his hands on the wet tiles on either side of Remus's shoulders and let his head fall forward, a series of moans and grunts and _fuck yeah_ falling from his lips. He thrust into Remus's hand with a final low groan, and Remus felt Sirius's arse and thighs clench as he came hard. Remus had a pang of regret that the water washed it away so quickly that he couldn't feel the moment Sirius's come had coated his hand and his own cock, but he was also too far gone to think too much. He let Sirius's spent cock slip out of his grip and then tightened his fist around himself, pumping hard and watching Sirius's face as he watched Remus's hand.

_You were so beautiful_, Remus thought with a sudden jolt of both desire and sadness. _So fucking beautiful_. And then his cock was thickening and jerking in his fist, spurting long strands of come onto Sirius's stomach and cock before the water washed it away, and as he felt Sirius's forehead rest against his and soft lips brush him, he shivered in his wet clothes and could only think one thing:

_Hold onto him this time. Hold onto him forever_.

* * *

The next morning, Remus yawned. A glance at the clock through bleary eyes told him that it was a little past six, and (he smiled) the feel of a firm body next to him told him that he hadn't been dreaming: he was seventeen again, a ray of sunshine was peeking through the gap in his bed curtains right on cue, and a restless, snoring Sirius Black was in bed beside him.

_Thank God_.

He'd done the right thing, then, following through the veil. Sure, this would take a bit of getting used to, but it wasn't as though he had anything great going on at home – back in his old life, so to speak. He frowned, remembering the battle, and the look of shock and horror on Sirius's face as he fell. A life without Sirius wasn't a life worth going back to. It was as simple as that.

"How come you're always so _loud_ when you're thinking?" he heard Sirius complain into the pillow. "You think you're being so quiet, but I can hear your heart speed up."

Remus glanced over at the back of his head.

"So what is it, then?" continued Sirius, making a noisy production of rolling over and draping an arm over Remus's waist before burrowing in close against his neck. "Let's sort you out so I can go back to sleep."

Remus smiled, lifting a knee under the covers to better anchor himself against Sirius's warm body. "Just… thinking about how good you felt last night," he murmured.

"Bollocks," sighed Sirius. "If you were thinking about that, you'd be hard as a tree branch right now and I don't think…" He trailed off, burrowing a hand under the blankets to gauge Remus's state of arousal.

Remus yelped and pushed him away. "Tickles," he said with a grin, and Sirius leaned in to kiss his neck before slumping down against the pillow again.

"Why don't you wake up with hard-ons like normal blokes?" he asked sadly.

"Why don't you ever get _sore_ like normal blokes?" Remus answered, his voice dropping. "After what I did to you last night, you shouldn't be hard again for a week."

Sirius groaned into the pillow, clutching at Remus's hip and pulling his body close. "You're talking like a porn star," he told Remus solemnly as he raised his head. "It won't work."

"What won't?" asked Remus innocently.

Sirius waved a hand. "_I was inside you so deep you could feel it in your throat_, all that sort of talk. It won't get me hard again, you know."

Remus glanced down at the tenting sheets and licked his lips. "Ah," he said, "should have known you'd never go for such cheap thrills."

"Thank you," sighed Sirius, rolling onto his side and nipping at Remus's neck.

Remus was quiet for a moment, considering the conversation. "How deep could you feel it?" he asked at last.

Sirius stopped nipping. "What?"

"Well, if not in your throat, I mean. Clearly that's a ridiculous comparison, as you've pointed out, since even a sizable cock, when pushed into an arse, can in no feasible way actually reach the throat, so…" He paused for breath. "How deep _did_ you feel it?" He glanced at Sirius to find his eyes closed and his dark hair splayed across the pillow.

He pushed the sheet aside and let his hand hover over his stomach before opening his eyes and giving Remus one of his hungriest looks. "About here," he said in a low voice, his fingers settling over his belly button.

Remus swallowed hard and shifted onto his side for a better look, because Sirius was _not_ supposed to actually answer that question, and now it was six a.m. and Remus was hard as nails, watching Sirius's hand drift down to lazily stroke his own cock and thinking about how utterly blissful it had been to sink inside him last night.

Without further thought, he kicked the sheets down and swung a leg over Sirius, sitting up and straddling him with their cocks pressed together.

"You're insatiable," Sirius murmured.

"You sore?"

"Little bit, but I like it that way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Here." Sirius grabbed the lube from beside the bed and pushed it into Remus's hand.

"You like it that way," Remus muttered to himself with a disbelieving shake of his head as he slathered oil on his cock and folded Sirius's legs up to his chest. His cock slid back behind Sirius's balls and into the crack of his arse, nudging gently at the hole. He paused. "About here?" he murmured, one hand brushing against Sirius's belly button, and Sirius groaned.

"Yeah," he said, breathing hard. "Can you get it that far?"

Remus couldn't answer. He let one hand rest against Sirius's stomach while the other pinched his own cock lightly, guiding it into place as he pushed forward. Sirius grunted a bit at the initial penetration, but Remus knew that after last night, he could take it.

He felt Sirius's body pulling him in, inch after inch settling inside as his cock drove deeper. But it was different today. If last night had been hard and desperate, hauling Sirius up on his hands and knees and raking fingernails down his back as Remus fucked his arse, this morning was surprisingly soft and gentle. They had never done it face-to-face like this before, at least not while they were teenagers. They'd always been too embarrassed, Remus supposed, or too naïve, or too desperate to just get each other off without really looking into each other's eyes.

Wait. If they had never done this before, then where the hell _was _he?

But Remus ignored the wave of panic and looked into Sirius's eyes. _He's here now. He's with me again. Nothing else matters_. He pushed inside Sirius's body and relished the lines of pleasure creasing his young face, and the look of desire and wonder and – fuck, yes, it had to be… _love_ – that he saw there. This was it, _this_ was what he'd always wanted with Sirius but was too afraid to ask for. _This_ was the way he'd wanted them to be – not just frantic blow jobs in the showers or quick fucks behind Silencing charms at night, but _this_. He wanted it slow, he wanted to savour it, and _God_, he wanted to look at Sirius's face and see that _he_ wanted all those things, too.

"Feel it?" he breathed, his body moving in slow thrusts.

Sirius nodded, his lips parted and his eyes intent on Remus.

Remus lowered himself down until his chest met Sirius's and Sirius's legs wrapped around him. He framed Sirius's face with his hands and kissed him with as much force of emotion as he could convey. _Don't ever be anything but this_, he thought as Sirius's tongue met his, moans escaping both of them as their bodies moved faster.

He felt Sirius come between their stomachs and he kissed him harder, pushing into his body until he felt rich and sharp and white, his mind blank and his body shuddering. Sirius held him inside with his hands against Remus's arse, and Remus let himself be swallowed up by it all – Sirius, the memories, his youth, and everything he'd ever wanted to hold onto, but couldn't.

* * *

There was sex, and it was good. It was _fantastic_, actually. Grimmauld Place had been haunted by ghosts since Sirius's return, no matter how badly Remus wanted to recreate their teenage years. He missed the days when nothing had mattered but sex and friendship and the way that Sirius would turn to him in the corridor on the way to Transfiguration, sling an arm around Remus's shoulders and say offhandedly, "Anything you need, Moony, you know I'd do it."

He _did_ know. That was the way things used to be back then.

But as Remus left Sirius softly snoring again and slipped out of bed, throwing on his clothes and pausing at the window to take in the early morning sky, he knew that this was not his Sirius. A shining star blinked back at him and he crawled into the window sill for a moment, twisting his scarf in his hands and trying to ignore the way that the mention of Padfoot's nickname had elicited a blank stare; the way that James and Peter were conspicuously absent from this dormitory; and the way he could gaze out at the grounds for hours and still not see any sign of the Whomping Willow.

The clouds shifted and swept the star under, and Remus sat for a long moment with his chin resting in one hand and a feeling of deep unsettlement in his bones.

With a sigh, he rose at last and headed out to the castle corridors. There was one way to see if this Hogwarts really was the one he used to live at, and that was by testing whether or not he could still slip past that painting of the bowl of fruit with a skillful tickle and duck into the kitchens to charm the house-elves into making him some nice, strong coffee to go with his pumpkin juice.

"Good morning, Professor Lupin," a dreamy voice said to him as he tried to sneak through the Entrance Hall to the hidden passage.

He froze.

Turning slowly and noiselessly on one heel, he found himself face to face with a girl with long, dirty-blonde hair, about fifteen years old, who was wearing a pair of kaleidoscope glasses in rather arresting shades of pink, orange, and blue. He stared at her, his mind racing.

She stepped forward carefully, following his eyes as they darted back and forth before leaning towards him and whispering, "Do you think you're invisible?"

"I– no." Remus stared at her some more. "No, but I– what did you call me?"

She gave him a sympathetic look. "Oh yes, it was rather a scandal when you got sacked–"

"I stepped down," he clarified, eyes narrowing.

"–but you were a decent teacher." She peered at him through the strange glasses. "Do you have a new name now?"

He didn't answer right away, but instead brought a hand up to his face to check the length of his sideburns. He fingered a few strands of his hair where it fell past his neck, much longer than he had worn it in over a decade, and then finally placed both hands out in front of himself, inspecting their smooth, unblemished surfaces. "I'm seventeen," he blurted out at last.

"Yes, but you were always so tall," she said with a firm nod, as if that explained matters.

"Luna," he said with as much patience as he could muster, "what are you doing here?"

She followed his eyes again as he scanned the empty hall. "Well," she said thoughtfully, "that depends where you think you are."

He opened his mouth to reply but then closed it again. That was the question, wasn't it? His mouth formed the words with a sticky slowness. "I'm… in my own past."

"Oh!" Her enlightened look soon melted into disapproval. "No, I just don't think so." She turned to the side and fiddled with her glasses for a moment until they achieved a renewed degree of spin that seemed to please her.

He refused to admit to his own doubts about his metaphysical location. "Er– why not?" he demanded.

In reply, she only tilted her head to one side and stared at him until he began to feel dizzy from the rotation of her goggles.

"Would you mind taking those off, please?" he said irritably, squeezing his eyes shut.

She looked at him crossly for a moment before removing the glasses and tucking them into her bag. "Well," she said, "I hope you aren't so rude to your students. An attitude like that might work in the '90s, but in the '70s students are much more likely to spike your pumpkin juice with Muggle narcotics." She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a firm nod.

"I'm not a teacher!" he cried. "I _am_ a student in the '70s, Luna, and believe me, I know all about how to spike a professor's pumpkin juice with–" He stopped himself and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his temples in exasperation. "What are you _doing_ here?" he asked again, his voice rising.

She seemed to have forgotten about her scolding tone of seconds earlier, resuming her usual serenity. "Oh," she sighed, fingering her long hair thoughtfully, "I heard the voices too, once. Behind the veil." She shrugged. "I followed them."

Remus's mouth fell open. "And you ended up in _my_ past?" he sputtered. "Luna, you have to go back! You can't–"

"And you can?" She raised her eyebrows, smiling at him. "Don't worry, Professor, I'm not in your past," she said, patting his arm and beginning to walk off down the corridor, "and neither are you."

He stared after her. "Then where am I?" he called frantically, throwing his hands up.

She paused next to a window and pointed out. "I can't tell you for sure, Professor, but you might start with that." She continued down the hall and disappeared around a corner as Remus dashed over to the window. His mind fogged.

There, amidst the swirling clouds in the early morning sky, was the unmistakable white sphere of last night's full moon.

"Luna!" he shouted, tearing his eyes from the window to scan the now-empty hallway. "_Luna_! Come back here! What the– why aren't I– _where am I?_"

But she was gone. As Remus turned back to the window and stared out at the moon, he felt his skin prickle and the world dissolved around him, leaving him with nothing but darkness and worry, and then only darkness.

***

**ii. i missed you since the place got wrecked | by the winds of change and the weeds of sex**

"There you are." The voice was low, close, and definitely _growling_. "God, are you naked already? Good, I've got to get back to work in an hour."

Remus's eyes flew open and performed a quick scan of his surroundings. Bed. Dresser. Crooked mirror. Door. And…? He squinted. "Bill?" he murmured in disbelief, staring at the man at the door.

"What?"

Remus's eyes widened and he struggled to sit up in the bed as Bill shoved his Gringotts robes off his shoulders and reached to pull his shirt over his head.

"Are you fucking _sleeping_? It's Tuesday, right? Said you'd be free."

He tossed the shirt aside and started on his belt, and Remus's cock took precisely one second to decide that metaphysical questions could probably wait, with a body that firm stripping in front of him. He glanced down at himself and briefly frowned at the sight of his graying chest hair. He was himself again. But he still didn't know where Sirius was, and he definitely didn't have any recollection of ever fucking Bill Weasley before. He was fairly certain he would have remembered that.

A jolt of raw hunger shot through him.

Bill was neither young nor old, free from both the boyish arrogance of Sirius at seventeen and the broken frailty of Sirius at thirty-five. Bill was lean, muscular, and certainly seemed to know how to handle himself.

A very strange but entirely plausible thought occurred to Remus. There had been a night, just after the Order had taken over Grimmauld Place and Bill had arrived from Egypt to help. Remus and Sirius had rowed over something trivial – probably Sirius being rude to Molly again. He'd stormed up to Buckbeak's room and refused to come down until later the next day. Bill had lingered in the kitchen, having a drink with Remus and Kingsley and trading stories about dangerous assignments – Bill with a Death Eater cell in Cairo; Kingsley with an illegal dragon-trafficking ring in Dublin.

There had been that one pulsing moment when Bill had turned to Remus with a lazy grin, knocking back the rest of his drink and then saying in a low voice, "What about you, Remus? Ever done anything dangerous?"

It had been so long since Remus had been propositioned that he immediately rejected the idea that it had been any such thing, muttering a quick, "No, not really," before bidding them goodnight and heading upstairs to bed.

But what if he had answered differently? What if he'd hooked his finger into the waist of Bill's trousers and pulled him in close, breathing in his scent and murmuring in his ear, "Is this dangerous enough for you?" What if, in another universe, he'd pushed Bill down to his knees right in that kitchen, right in front of Kingsley, torn open his trousers and presented Bill with a thick, red cock to suck?

And what if, he concluded now with a lick of his dry lips and another glance at Bill's firm body standing before him, that night had been the start of _this_, some secret thing that Sirius and Fleur (oh God, _Fleur_) didn't know anything about, a thing whereby they met on Tuesdays (and maybe Fridays?) on Bill's lunch break, and they fucked themselves raw.

Bill kicked his trousers to the floor and advanced on the bed like a man who knew exactly what he wanted.

_No, you can't. You're not a man who does things like this_.

"God, you look good," Bill muttered, crawling across the bed towards him. "Thought about you all morning, how you'd fuck me today."

_It's not real; you're still in the veil. Got to find Sirius and make it right again. Got to – _

Bill yanked the blankets off and gave a predatory grin at the sight of Remus's naked form underneath, his cock fully hard against his stomach.

_It's not real_, Remus told himself again as he felt Bill's warm breath moving down his body and settling between his legs. A pulse of pure desire shot through him and he struggled not to thrust his hips up.

_And if it's not real, it doesn't matter if I do it_.

Bill's lips closed around his cock and Remus gave a shameless groan at last, grabbing Bill's head and pushing his cock in deeper.

Bill pulled back at once, glaring up at Remus. "You want me to bite it off?" he growled. "Keep that up."

"I want you to do what I want," replied Remus in a quiet but firm voice, surprising himself with the words, and he saw a hint of a smile on Bill's lips as he lowered his head again.

"Yeah?"

"Suck it," hissed Remus. His cock slid past Bill's wet lips and he found he couldn't care less _what_ universe he was in. The man knew what he was doing. There was only soft heat around him, wet and tight as Bill followed every dip of his mouth with a stroke of his fist up Remus's cock. Remus was just relaxing into it, just starting to feel that telltale buzz down his back and inside his thighs, when Bill's mouth lifted away.

"You're thinking about Sirius, aren't you?"

Remus's eyes flew open. "What?"

"Did he ever suck you like this?" Bill drawled, his hand still fisting Remus's cock as he propped himself up.

"Where is he?" Remus demanded. "Is he here?"

Bill squeezed his hand, and Remus gasped without meaning to. "He's rotting in Azkaban, just like he deserves." Bill's eyes narrowed but he watched Remus carefully. "Pure scum, isn't he?"

"Shut the fuck up about him," Remus said in a low voice, feeling his chest tighten with rage.

"Or what?" taunted Bill, pulling his hand away and crawling over top of Remus, letting their cocks brush together and giving Remus a predatory grin. "Bet he couldn't even get it up for you, could he? Death Eater trash, that's what he was. Probably sucked Voldemort's cock more often than yours."

A blinding fury flashed through Remus's body and before he could stop himself, he raked his fingernails into Bill's chest and threw him off with a vicious shove. "I told you to shut your mouth," he growled, rising from the bed and glaring down at Bill's prone form. "He was innocent, and you know it." His own cock was still painfully hard, and when he glanced down Bill's body he found the other man's cock red and leaking where it jutted up. "You like this," he added, giving Bill a quick squeeze before lifting his hand away again. "You like to talk trash to get me angry?"

Bill groaned at the brief contact but held Remus's gaze. "No," he replied, licking his lips. "It's not trash if it's the truth. I've heard the rumours. Your boyfriend took so much Death Eater cock up the arse he could have–"

"Shut up!" Remus screamed, his brain clicking right off and his body ruled only by the force of his anger. He pulled Bill off the bed and hurled him against the wall. He grabbed Bill's jaw and forced his gaze. "You say one more fucking word about him and you won't walk straight for a month," he whispered fiercely. "Is that what you want?"

"Mild-mannered little Remus Lupin? No fucking way," Bill spat. "You help old ladies across the street, you're such a fucking queen. You don't have it in you."

"_Incarcerous_," Remus whispered, his face only inches from Bill's. Half a dozen cords sprang from the air and wound themselves tightly around Bill's wrists, then shot up to the ceiling and fixed themselves there. Bill's arms followed, jerking straight up over his head and he winced and gave a grunt of pain. "I have it in me," Remus said softly. "Don't test me again."

Bill laughed, pulling at his bonds and shaking his head. "Should have known," he said. "This the only way you could keep Sirius around – tie him up and force him? No bloke's desperate enough to take your cock voluntarily."

Remus reached down and grasped Bill's balls, tugging them hard to one side. Bill clenched his jaw and grunted, but refused to cry out. "You are," Remus said, winding his other hand in Bill's ponytail and yanking his head back. He lowered his head to Bill's exposed throat and let his teeth scrape at the skin. "Should I bite you?" he asked conversationally, his blood still pumping full of rage at what Bill had said about Sirius. "Wolves are known to mark their prey, you know."

Bill fell slack for a moment, a soft whimper escaping him. "Oh God, yeah," he breathed. "You didn't tell me you wanted to mess around with–"

"Shut up," Remus said again, ignoring him. "Maybe I should fuck you as a werewolf. Tie you down and bite you when I come, what do you think of that?"

"Fuck, a _werewolf_?" Bill's head fell back against the wall. "That sounds so hot. Okay, keep talking like that…" He squirmed in his bonds, trying to shift his hips against Remus's, but Remus only pulled harder on both his hair and his sac.

"You don't know anything about him, do you?"

Bill seemed to let the werewolf idea go and his face hardened again. "I know he deserves every fucking year he's been rotting in that cell," he shot back. "Bending over for the fucking Dementors, that's what they say. He'll take it from anyone."

"Sounds like you will, too," Remus growled, releasing his hold on Bill, spinning him in his bonds to turn him around and shoving him face-first into the wall. He grabbed his cock and pushed the tip between Bill's buttocks, immediately feeling a jolt from the warmth wrapped around him. He groaned low and steady in Bill's ear. "You ready to shut up, or do you actually want to do this without lube?" he breathed viciously.

In reply, Bill began to move his throat and jaw, slowly at first and then faster, Remus watching him with fascination. After a few seconds Remus raised his hand and cupped it under Bill's mouth.

"You're disgusting," he bit out, as Bill spat into his hand and licked his tongue slowly over his bottom lip to catch the remains. Bill gave him a slow grin, but still said nothing.

Remus slid his hand between them and slithered it over his cock. It was dirty and wrong and not nearly enough, for that matter, but he couldn't think of doing anything else. He kicked Bill's legs a bit further apart, watching the way it pulled his arms up higher in his bonds. The tip of his cock felt wet and hot as it pushed forward.

"Harder," Bill rasped as his head fell forward against the wall. "Come on. If you're going to fuck me, then _fuck me_."

Remus yanked harder on Bill's hair, twisting his head around to look at him. "You don't know what you're asking for," he growled, feeling his entire body heat with anticipation. He shoved Bill back into the wall, mashing his cheek in and pulling out the band that held his hair. Long red strands fell over Bill's broad shoulders, and Remus buried his hands in it and used it as leverage as he pushed the rest of his cock into Bill's body.

The younger man grunted in pain and balled his bound hands into fists over his head, his face contorted as Remus withdrew a few inches before slamming in again. It was so hot inside Bill, the friction sucking him in and the lack of adequate lubrication pulling at Remus's cock in a way he never expected. He'd shagged before, he'd made love even, he'd done any number of things in the bedroom, mostly with Sirius, but he'd never _fucked _a man like this – hard and vicious and explosive.

He thrust in deep, his hips pistoning against Bill's in increasingly raw, jagged motions. He couldn't slide in and out as well using only saliva as lubrication, but he could _push_. He shoved in relentlessly, jerking himself inside Bill's body and letting the tight heat around his cock bring him closer to the edge.

"_Harder_," Bill grunted again, and Remus tightened his grip in Bill's hair.

"Shut up," he spat, rotating his hips and pulling out more than before, and then thrusting forward again. "I decide how hard you get it." He saw blood streaming from a few of Bill's fingernails and knuckles where he had raked them against the rough wall, forcing the bonds over his head to scrape the stone, and something else woke up inside him. He yanked Bill's hair to the side and lowered his head, letting his teeth scrape over the skin where Bill's neck met his shoulder.

"God, yeah," murmured Bill, letting Remus pull his hair back.

Remus bit down, not nearly as hard as he wanted to, not nearly enough to break the skin, but enough to bruise and taste. The pressure in his mouth was exquisite, a need he had never let himself indulge before out of fear of going too far and infecting his partner with lycanthropy. But somehow that didn't worry him now; there was only this room, and this man underneath him, and this urge to bite and mark him.

With his teeth scratching at skin and his cock shoving in deep, Remus wound one hand tightly in Bill's hair and dropped the other to his cock. He cupped Bill's balls first and yanked again, relishing the loud groan that fell from Bill's mouth. "You want to come?" he whispered fiercely into Bill's shoulder, his thumb teasing at the base of Bill's thick cock.

"No," Bill muttered, and Remus grinned.

"Wrong answer," he breathed. "I asked you if you want to come." He pulled Bill's balls to the side and cinched his thumb and forefinger around the sac.

"Fuck… you," Bill panted.

Another surge of anger shot through Remus and he stilled his hips. The room fell silent except for Bill's ragged breathing. "What did you say?" Remus said quietly after several seconds' agonising pause. He could feel the pulses of Bill's body around his cock as he remained perfectly still, hard and aching inside him.

"This game might have worked with him," snarled Bill, "but it won't with me. I'm not your bitch like he was."

That did it. With a groan that rose up from his chest he pulled his cock all the way out, feeling Bill's body tear around him before shoving in again, hard and merciless and with pure desire building like white light through his body. He released Bill's sac and wrapped a rough fist around his cock, stroking it hard and fast as he fucked Bill deeply.

Bill's back tensed and the groans streamed from his mouth, low and guttural and harsh. Remus felt him thicken in his hand and his thighs begin to tremble, and he gave one last hard tug at the long hair in his other hand. Bill came with a howl, his head pulled back and his eyes squeezed shut as hot wetness covered Remus's hand and spurted onto the wall in front of them.

Remus gathered it in his fist and pulled his cock out quickly again, coating his cock with Bill's come. "You don't deserve lube," he muttered, "but I do." He pushed in again and felt the sweet slide of it like a new burst of light in his body. It was slick and tight and now with the tremors wracking Bill's body from his orgasm, Remus felt caressing pulses around his cock, squeezing him with every thrust. He gripped Bill's hips and dug his fingernails in hard and _pushed_ until he felt the first bursts of his own release, coming in thick waves inside Bill's body. He went rigid and stayed inside as long as he could, the come already starting to run back out around his softening cock.

When he finally pulled out, it was with a sickening sound and a jolting sense of reality crashing in around him.

* * *

Remus hastened to release Bill's bonds and with a low, slow groan, Bill slid to the floor as though boneless, his eyes falling shut.

Remus took a stumbling step backwards, his mind reeling at what he'd just done. He quickly grabbed a shirt off the floor and wiped his cock, his body suddenly feeling like shards of ice were running through his veins. "God, Bill, I'm sorry," he began. "I don't know what– I didn't mean to– _fuck_. Are you hurt?" He crouched down and laid a hand on Bill's arm.

To his surprise, Bill opened his eyes and gave him a lazy grin, then he leaned over on one elbow and reached for a packet of fags in his robes. He shook one out and lit it with a pass of his hand and wordless spell and took a long drag. He eyed Remus with amusement. "You and your guilt," he said. "Every time. Look, it's something you need, and something I can provide, so don't think so hard about it, yeah? Here." He held the fag out to Remus, who shook his head. "Ah, right." Bill grinned. "Your vices aren't so simple."

"My vices…" Remus looked up at the ceiling and let his voice trail off. There were too many questions to ask, and he didn't know where to begin. He started with the one most weighing on him. "This…" He gestured between them and sighed. "Does Fleur know?"

Bill blinked at him. "Does _who_ know?"

"Fleur." Remus faltered. "Your– you know. Fiancée."

Bill raised the cigarette to his lips again, his eyes fixed on Remus. "Fleur," he repeated as the smoke left his mouth. "My fiancée." He paused. "Remus, I don't know what you'd call us based on that fuck, but I'd call us a pair of shirt lifters, yeah? If I ever acquire a fiancée named _Fleur_, she'd better be packing one hell of a cock under her wedding dress." He snorted and flicked his cigarette ash on the floor.

Remus sat down on the bed and stared. "Fleur Delacour. You don't even know her?"

"Fleur _Delacour_? The fucking Tri-Wizard champion?" Bill laughed outright at that. "What's the matter with you?"

Remus ran a hand through his hair and tried to think. He had to figure out where he was, and more importantly, he had to find Sirius. "Who else isn't here?" he asked quietly. "The Order – you know about that, right?"

Bill nodded slowly, still regarding Remus as though he had lost his mind. "And You-Know-Who, Voldemort – we're still fighting him?"

Another perplexed nod.

"And Dumbledore's head of Hogwarts, and this is Grimmauld Place?" he continued hopefully.

"Yeah, yeah. What the hell's wrong with you?"

Remus sighed with relief. All right. It wasn't inconceivable that in this universe, Bill simply never met Fleur. That could be the only difference. "Nothing's wrong," he said dismissively. "I'm fine. Now look, just tell me when the full moon is, so I can prepare for that, and then I need to find Sirius. Does he still stay upstairs with Buckbeak most days?"

Bill stared at him again, the cigarette stuck to his lip.

Remus ignored him, his mind working too quickly. "God, and I should go see Harry, make sure he's all right." He looked up. "Forgive me – how's your family? Your brothers and Ginny… everyone all right?"

Bill rose slowly to his feet, mashing his cigarette into the floor and snatching his wand from his robes as he did so, his blazing eyes trained on Remus and his face suddenly a stone block. "Who are you?" he demanded, gripping his wand and pointing it at Remus's throat. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Right, okay, wand down," said Remus quickly. It was possible that he should have seen this coming, and he cursed himself for speaking so openly. "You know who I am, I'm the same person," he insisted. "I just… I've been having some memory problems lately." His mind fumbled for an excuse. "Think I got hit with… a strange spell at… the last battle. Can't remember things right."

Bill pushed the wand tip in harder. "Oh yeah?" he growled. "That sounds like something a bloke would say under Polyjuice, doesn't it?" The wood twisted into Remus's neck and he winced, trying not to cough. "Who are you?" Bill repeated in an angry voice.

"You didn't doubt who I was five minutes ago," muttered Remus, holding Bill's eyes.

Bill tilted his head to the side. "You fuck like Remus Lupin, that's true," he said slowly, his jaw tense and the wand tip still lodged against Remus's throat. "But that alone won't keep me from hexing your cock off right now if you're not him."

"May I get dressed?" Remus asked with a sigh, determined not to let his own eyes glance down at Bill's naked body. There was still something there, some force that was making the man unreasonably attractive. What they had just done had been harsh and filthy and completely animalistic, like nothing Remus had ever done before. It hadn't only been the taunts about Sirius, he realised. He _wanted _Bill Weasley – hard, naked, and chained to a wall. He looked up at the ceiling.

"No." Bill smirked at him, backing up a step and pulling his wand away from Remus's neck only to swiftly aim it at his chest. "_Petrificus totalus_," he whispered harshly, and Remus had only seconds to inwardly curse the gods of the universe before he felt his limbs lock into place, rigid as a statue.

Bill grabbed his own clothes off the floor and dressed quickly before aiming his wand at Remus once more. "Stay still," he muttered with a smirk, and Remus could only watch with apprehension and more than a little frustration as Bill began drawing a pattern around him, encasing him in a box etched in the air and then crisscrossing it with a series of diagonal lines. As he did so, he murmured a low incantation that Remus could not make out.

After several minutes of this, Bill paused and held his wand still. Remus could see through the marks drawn in front of him, and he felt nothing, but Bill's face had shifted into an expression of both wonder and alarm. He began to shake his head slowly back and forth.

"Well, fuck _me_," he murmured.

Remus stared at him, unable to move or speak.

"It's not your memory, is it?" Bill asked quietly. "You didn't get hit with any hex." He squinted and drew another line with his wand, this one bisecting the air in front of Remus's chest. His mouth fell open. "And you're not under Polyjuice." He raised his eyes to Remus's and said nothing else for a long moment, his mouth turned down in a frown of concentration. "Where are you from?" he asked suddenly. "What time?"

Remus narrowed his eyes as best he could without use of his facial muscles, glaring at Bill, who had to spend another minute in contemplation.

"Fine," he said at last, waving his wand at the air in front of Remus's chest to dissipate the lines and then unlocking the body-bind.

Remus pushed past him and grabbed the first t-shirt and pair of trousers he found in the closet. They _were_ his, he noticed, as was this bedroom, but he still couldn't piece together this puzzle. "Thank you," he said bitterly as he pulled his clothes on.

"Answer the question," said Bill.

"Tell me what you did," replied Remus, crossing his arms over his chest.

Bill hesitated. "It's an old Egyptian spell," he explained at last. "Helps identify shape shifters and the like. But you're different, aren't you…?"

Remus didn't answer.

"You knew about Grimmauld Place, but not about Sirius. And you knew me, but you thought I had a fiancée…"

"I'm from… the same time as this," said Remus after a moment, gesturing at the air in front of him. "But everything's different."

"Not everything."

"Enough," Remus insisted. "Look, I can't explain it all, I just need to figure out how to–"

"Get back."

"No, not… quite." Remus scrubbed at his face, suddenly feeling exhausted. "Look, do you trust me now?" he asked plainly.

Bill placed his wand between his teeth and reached back to gather his hair in his hands, knotting a band around it before gripping his wand again and giving Remus a careful look. "I just let you fuck me so hard I can barely stand up right now," he said flatly. "So yeah, I guess I trust you."

"That's not really a good enough reason," Remus pointed out. "Constant vigilance, and all that."

"Ah," Bill said with a tiny grin, "you have a Moody where you're at."

"Yeah." Remus eyed him. "You're really accepting this alternate universe idea quite easily, aren't you?"

"No," Bill admitted, letting out a loud sigh, "but I've seen it before. There's a bend in the Nile, just south of where I used to work, that the locals call _bâb-al-baqara_, the 'gate with holes.' They say there can be ripples sometimes, some sort of…" He trailed off, gesturing with empty hands. "Well, I don't know, exactly. It's not standard magic, that's for damn sure, but it can happen." He gave Remus a long look. "I don't want to know how you got here, do I?"

Remus shook his head. "I'd rather not get into it," he admitted.

"But it's something to do with Sirius."

His jaw clenched.

"Dumbledore know you're here?"

"No, just–" Remus frowned. "Keep it between us for now, all right? But you've got to tell me…" He felt his face heat to think about it, but he pointed at the wall and held Bill's eyes. "What the hell was _that_?"

Bill looked startled for a moment before a grin spread across his face. "You don't– oh God. Okay. You don't remember. Then– wow." He ran a hand over his face. "That was quite a performance if you didn't even know what you were doing."

"I… think I knew what I was doing," muttered Remus.

"Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong." Bill stepped towards him and lowered his head to within a few inches of Remus's neck, then inhaled. "You know what you're doing," he murmured.

Remus fought down another surge of arousal.

"You like it rough, I like it rough." Bill shrugged. "Just that you're too fucking polite to go there unless I make you." He scratched at his jaw and grinned at Remus.

"You said those things to rile me up?"

"That's our deal, yeah? You get angry at the world, at the war… and you won't let it out. This is the only thing that seems to work."

"Making up shit about Sirius?" Remus felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He'd _asked_ for this, convinced Bill Weasley to talk that way to get Remus to fuck him, all at Sirius's expense?

"Making it up?" Bill looked angry. "All right, maybe the bit about the Dementors – what do I know if they've got cocks or not? But if you're still pissed off about the rest, you can blame him, not me. Okay." He stopped his rant and took a deep breath. "Sorry. You didn't know."

"Look, where is he?" said Remus wearily, pushing past Bill and opening the door. He glanced back. "I'm sorry. You're– really nice."

Bill raised an eyebrow.

"All right, you're… God, that was good," Remus sighed, leaning against the door frame. "I haven't fucked anyone that hard in years, maybe ever," he added in a low voice.

Bill sauntered towards him and pressed a hand against Remus's crotch, letting his fingers trail up from Remus's balls over his half-hard prick. "Anytime, Remus," he said softly, and it was all Remus could do not to shove him back down on that bed and spread him wide open.

"Bloody hell," he said with a short laugh, running a hand through his hair. "Thank you for that, but… I'm in love with someone else. I'm sorry if what's been happening between us has misled you, but…" He bit back a moan at the thought that his other self had been fucking Bill Weasley this way for God knew how long. "I can't anymore. I'm with Sirius."

He turned to leave the room but found that Bill had already reached over his shoulder and clicked the door shut again. "Now you're just taking the piss, right?" he asked.

Remus's stomach dropped to the floor. "We're in his house," he pointed out in a wavering voice. "I know this place, and you already admitted as much." He raised an accusing finger, panic beginning to flood his mind.

"We're in Regulus's house, yeah," Bill corrected him. "He's letting the Order use it while he's hiding out."

Remus stared at him. "_Regulus_? Bill," he said warningly, reaching for his wand, "_where_ is Sirius?"

Bill just shook his head in disbelief. "Same place he's been since he gave up the Order and killed your friends fifteen years ago," he replied, watching Remus carefully. "In Azkaban."

* * *

"Fifteen…" Remus fell back against the door. "No, he got out," he mumbled absently. "He escaped two years ago."

Bill shook his head slowly. "Nope. God, have you really gone through _bâb-al-baqara_? That's just fucking crazy. He _escaped_ from Azkaban? Completely impossible."

"No it wasn't, he–" Remus stopped, his head swimming. "I've got to get out of here. I'm sorry, I just–" He gave Bill an apologetic look before turning and striding out the door. He glanced around the corridor outside the bedroom and confirmed that he was in indeed in Grimmauld Place, on the third floor.

"Remus!" Bill's voice called from the bedroom door, but Remus hurried down the stairs towards the library. The walls were covered in portraits, like he remembered, but something was different. He slowed his pace and paused on the first floor landing, his eyes scanning the walls in disbelief. The usual portraits of Regulus were gone; in their place, he saw dozens and dozens of portraits of a young Sirius – Sirius in Slytherin robes; Sirius hoisting the House Cup over his head; Sirius grinning like a fool with an arm slung around Lucius Malfoy.

Remus's jaw dropped.

He hurried to the library and locked the door behind him, then turned and scanned the bulging bookcases. He'd spent a great deal of time in here before the battle at the Department of Mysteries, trying to unlock Mr. Black's collection of cursed books and simply reading many of the others to keep his skills sharp. There was more information on Dark Magic in this room than in the homes of all the Death Eaters combined, he would wager, and as he looked at the shelves now, he saw that they appeared to be exactly the same as he remembered.

He pulled a number of volumes down and settled behind Mr. Black's old desk, flipping through them anxiously for some clue about… what, exactly? How to cope with shifting realities? How best to free one's soul mate from life imprisonment that you put him in by fucking with the time/space continuum? What to do after having the most mind-blowing sex of your life when it was _not_ with the person you promised to love and cherish forever?

His head fell down against the desk. Best not to think about that last.

He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes, a passage from the latest book in front of him swimming into focus. He checked the front cover – _A History of Magical Britain, Volume XXXII_ – and then flipped back to the page he'd just read. Oh God, no. Not this.

"Hey." He glanced up to see Bill pushing the door back and placing his wand back in his robes. "That was a shite locking spell, if you really didn't want to be found."

Remus smiled apologetically.

"I've got to get back to work," said Bill, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "Just… you all right?"

"Yeah. Sorry, I'm just–" He sighed. "Listen. Is this true?" He gestured to the book, and Bill stepped a bit further into the room.

"What's that?"

"The Potters, back in '81. They died."

Bill nodded.

"And… the baby, too."

"Yeah, as far as I know. Sirius Black tipped off You-Know-Who."

Remus sat back in the chair and let out a slow breath, his chest tight and his stomach nauseous. "Then why are we in this house?" he asked wearily. "Who is the Order protecting, if not Harry Potter?"

"We're keeping Neville alive until he's old enough and Dumbledore can get him trained right, yeah? Then he's got to go kill– you know. The prophecy."

Remus closed his eyes. "Neville," he said quietly. "Regulus. Fleur. My God, everything's…" He raised his eyes to Bill again. "When's the full moon?"

Bill shrugged. "No idea."

"You don't even need to know, do you?" said Remus. "You're with me, what, at least once a week? And that's not something you even need to know."

"No," said Bill slowly, but Remus was relieved to find that Bill was no longer looking at him with the sort of look children usually reserve for their dotty old grandmothers. He looked like he was trying to figure this out just as much as Remus was. "Why are you asking?"

Remus shook his head. "No, it doesn't matter."

But Bill persisted. "You mentioned a werewolf before," he said, his eyes narrowed. "Why did you mention that?"

"I said it doesn't matter," snapped Remus. "Go back to work."

The room was silent for a moment as the two men stared at each other.

"Which Remus are you going to be when I come back?" asked Bill, and Remus hesitated.

"Well, I don't really know how I got here, so I don't really know how to leave," he answered at last. "For now I just…" He sighed. "I've got to figure out how to find Sirius and get him out of prison."

"You'd rather try to break him out of Azkaban than go back to him in another dimension?" said Bill incredulously.

"Yes," muttered Remus, "because he may be in prison, but at least he's alive." But that wasn't right, Remus thought as soon as the words were out of his mouth, because now he had three realities to choose from, not two. Maybe the best option would be to figure out how to get back to Hogwarts at age seventeen, ignore Luna's insistence that it wasn't his actual past, and make it into the past he'd always wanted to have.

Bill opened his mouth to say something but seemed to think the better of it. "Okay," he said after another pause. "Okay, I've got to go." He turned to the door. "So… you meant it before, when you said that you were in love with him," he said quietly to the door knob. "You thought he was here."

"Yeah," replied Remus, "I did."

"But you still…" He stopped in mid-sentence and shook his head. "Never mind," he muttered. "I'll just… I'll come back later, all right? In the meantime, you're not leaving this house." He tapped his wand in his free hand and gave Remus a small smile.

"Still don't trust me?"

"Constant vigilance," Bill reminded him, and Remus smiled back.

The door clicked shut behind him and Remus turned back to his books with a sigh, the weight of several rather confusing worlds on his shoulders.

* * *

Remus rose early the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast with a heavy heart. He had tossed and turned all night, his conversation with Bill rolling over in his mind. Not to mention the things he'd done with Bill that hadn't involved talking. He scrubbed at his face as he pushed the kitchen door back, determined not to think about _those_ things, at least not until he figured out what the hell to do about all the other things.

"Good morning, Professor," a dreamy voice said, and Remus dropped the kettle into the sink. He whirled around to find Luna Lovegood sitting at the table and bit back a curse.

"Luna," he said flatly, after taking a few gulps of air and calming his heart rate. "What are you– no, wait." He held up a hand. "Let me guess. It won't do me any good to ask what you're doing here."

"Not really," she agreed, sipping from a cup a tea and straightening the rather large, bulbous hat on her head that was currently shooting yellow sparks in the air. "There's tea left in the pot, if you don't know how to boil water." She glanced at the upside-down kettle in the sink and gave him a pitiful look, made all the worse when he realised she wasn't being sarcastic.

"You startled me," he grumbled, righting the kettle and shoving it back onto the counter, then grabbing a cup and pouring himself some of Luna's lukewarm tea. He flopped into a chair across from her and stirred in a sugar cube. "So, let's have the truth, then. I'm dead, aren't I?" he muttered to her. "And you're some sort of guardian angel sent to punish me."

"I don't think guardian angels are meant to punish anyone," replied Luna, adjusting her hat, "or else they'd have a different name."

He nodded wearily. "Am I dead?" he repeated. "Going through the veil kills a person, right?"

She tilted her head to the side and squinted at him, as if that might translate what he had asked her into a language she could understand. "Did you get fired because you don't really understand the Dark Arts?" she asked innocently.

"I didn't get fired!" he exclaimed. "I told you that before. I _resigned_, remember?"

She squinted harder. "Did you _resign_ because you don't really understand the Dark Arts?"

Remus closed his eyes and counted to ten. He needed answers, and Luna was the only person around who might be able to give them to him. Throttling her would not help this goal; not to mention that he did not want to test the gods' wrath if she _was_ some sort of guardian angel and he went and stabbed her with a teaspoon. "Yes," he said with a bow of his head. "I resigned because of stupidity. Please, _please_, Luna, take pity on me and tell me where I am, and what's going on here."

"I'm quite sure you're not dead," she said, and he let out a sigh of relief.

"Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. So, you're not an angel."

"No."

"Some sort of Ghost of Christmas Present, then? Or Past, or Future, or–"

"No." She gave a wistful sigh. "I always preferred the Bronte sisters. Dickens was a bit of a cad, don't you think?"

"Yes. Absolutely." He clenched his jaw. "Luna, how did you get through the veil?"

"Ohhhh." Her face lit up and she stared off into space for a moment with a dreamy smile on her lips. "I just went through," she said calmly.

"But how did you get to the Department of Mysteries?" he said incredulously.

"Oh, I didn't. Sometimes it moves, you know. Different portals around the world. They usually open up when there's a death, but you have to know where to look for them."

He stared at her. "And… where did you look?"

"Under the kitchen sink," she said matter-of-factly, as if describing a search for her pet cat. "My mother died in the kitchen, and I hid in the cupboard when I saw her."

Remus felt his jaw slacken and all the frustration he'd felt towards the girl evaporate. "Oh, Luna," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

They sat in silence for a long moment before Luna spoke again. "I found her once, if that's what you want to know," she said softly.

"Where?"

"In Paris in 1895," she replied with sudden happiness. "She was a wizard's assistant! Well, the Muggles called them _magicians_ then, and they did stage shows. She loved magic, always inventing new spells, you know." Luna cupped her hands around her tea and spoke earnestly. "They'd put her in tanks of water and then she'd disappear! The Muggles paid her a lot of money for that."

"You were in Paris," he asked slowly, "in 1895?"

"Mm. A bit smelly," she said conspiratorially, "and of course, no Hogwarts. So I made sure she was all right, and then I left."

Remus stared at her. "How did you _leave_?" he exclaimed. "That's what I've been trying to ask you!"

"Oh, I just went to a different reality. Can you tell me if these sparks are yellow or orange?" she added, gesturing to her hat.

"Er– yellow. Luna," he said solemnly, "please listen to me. When I saw you before, I was seventeen, and we were both at Hogwarts. Now I'm thirty-five again, and we're at Grimmauld Place. And you're still – what, fifteen?"

She nodded. "Last April. My father took me to see the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks nursery in Reykjavik and we–"

"Right. Happy birthday." He held up a hand to silence her, his patience again growing thin. "Sirius is still in Azkaban, and I need to get him out. That's the bottom line."

"Oh no, you can't do that," said Luna calmly.

"I know it won't be easy, but I–"

"No, I mean you _mustn't_. He's there for a reason."

"He's there for a _false_ reason!" Remus shouted, and then slammed his mouth closed and looked away.

"That's the way it is," she insisted, her tone hardening. "In one reality, my mother is dead; in another, she's in Paris a hundred years ago. I can't change either of them."

"Then why did you follow?" he asked urgently, tugging at his hair with one fist. "Why are you in here, if not to change something?"

"Did you come in here to change something," she asked quietly, "or did you just follow someone who died, without even thinking?"

Remus took a deep breath and stared past her, not answering.

She rose from the table and carried her tea cup over to the sink, placing it down with a soft clatter. "In one reality, he is dead," she said softly. "In another, he's seventeen and captain of the Quidditch team. And in another…" She sighed. "He's in prison for life."

"Then I know which reality I want to live in," replied Remus, turning to face her again. "We're seventeen, I'm not a werewolf… it's perfect."

"Yes," she said with a nod, hooking a finger absently into her cork necklace and running it back and forth. "It's especially perfect because James Potter and Peter Pettigrew don't exist, so he'll never go to Azkaban, will he?" She gave him her usual dreamy smile. "Perfect, except that–"

"No James Potter means no Harry Potter," Remus finished for her, staring at the floor, "which means no baby to stop Voldemort."

"You're starting to see how it works," she said quietly, heading for the kitchen door.

"You're leaving?"

She smiled. "I'm sure we'll meet again, Professor. You seem to travel in the same realities as me, after all."

He gave a surprised sort of laugh at that, although none of it was remotely funny. "Wait, Luna," he called, and she turned. "What happened to the Weasleys in this one? One of them… I sensed from Bill that something was wrong."

"Oh." Luna's face darkened. "Well, you remember the Chamber of Secrets."

He nodded cautiously. "I heard about it."

"It happened the same way as you think, except for one thing."

He stared at her, his mind racing. "Harry Potter died as a baby," he said slowly, and she nodded.

"Nobody was there to save Ginny," she confirmed. "She died."

* * *

Bill returned later that day, as promised, carrying an armload of books and peppering Remus with questions. How many realities had he been in before this one? How could he tell which one was real? What exactly had happened before he jumped through the veil? How come he got to be gay in all his realities whereas Bill didn't? And so on.

They sifted through every book they could find that even touched on the subject, but none were very helpful. At most, when a book reached the topic of the veil, it would say only, "_The veil is a very mysterious concept about which we know very little. It is best to avoid it if at all possible_." The only thing the books seemed to agree on was that the veil was reserved for the dead. Passing through it without first experiencing death was, it seemed, remarkably ill-advised.

"Fantastic," Remus sighed, rubbing his eyes and slumping into the couch cushions as they slid into their fourth straight hour of work. "There's no getting him out of Azkaban, and there's no getting me out of _here_. It was all for nothing, the whole veil idea." He closed his eyes, but Bill's silence weighed on him. "Not… _nothing_," he clarified, looking over at Bill. "That's not what I–"

"No, it's all right," said Bill quickly. "I know what you meant."

Remus watched him for a minute. "How long have we been… doing that," he asked softly.

"You mean fucking?" said Bill, his voice a sharp edge as he looked down at his hands. He sighed. "I don't know. A few months, maybe. Since I got here from Egypt."

Remus glanced at him sideways. "Wait a second. Did you come on to me one night, when we were drinking with Kingsley?"

"Er– no," Bill replied slowly, a smile spreading over his face. "I insulted Sirius one night and when the meeting was over, you threw me into a wall and told me to watch my mouth."

Remus's throat went dry. "Oh," he breathed. "That was… rather rude of me."

"Nah, the rude part didn't come until you locked the door and bent me over the kitchen table."

"Ah." Remus swallowed. 'That– oh."

"But I came on to you?" Bill prompted, clearing enjoying Remus's incoherence.

"What? Oh, yes. Just, well, I wasn't sure if you were or not. You and Kingsley were trading war stories one night and you turned to me, and– Well."

"And what?"

"Well, it was nothing, really."

"Tell me."

Remus sighed. "You asked me if I'd ever done anything dangerous."

Bill smiled. "That sounds like a come on to me."

Remus shook his head sadly. "I knew it," he said with a wistful smile.

"Let me guess," Bill said, "you said 'no,' went upstairs, put on your pyjamas and went to bed with a book, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Where was your man that night?" Bill continued, his voice light and teasing. "I could have taken you to bed and he wouldn't have noticed?"

Remus dropped his eyes and thought for a minute. "Yeah," he said at last, his voice soft. "You probably could have."

"He wasn't there?"

"No, he was there, but he… slept in another room for awhile."

"Ah." Bill winced. "Sorry."

"Azkaban'll fuck a man up," said Remus sadly, "as you might imagine. Took a while for us to… I don't know. Get it right again."

Bill gave him a sympathetic nod, and Remus looked around suddenly.

"Quiet around here, eh? The Order forget to tell us where they're going?"

Bill smiled. "Nah, there hasn't been much going on lately. Nothing new, so no need to meet. Dumbledore said to keep doing what we've been doing, and he'd call us together when he needed us."

Remus listened for a minute, but then shook his head. "No, it's me."

Bill glanced at him.

"This house should have people coming and going all the time if it's a real Headquarters. I've messed it all up by being here." He looked around, suddenly feeling panicked. "Wait. You said you've seen this before, back in Egypt?" he asked, and Bill nodded. "Where am _I_, then? You know, the me that was here before… me?"

Bill shook his head. "There's only one you," he replied with a shrug. "That's the way I understand it, at least, but then again my Arabic's a bit rusty. It's not a parallel universe, it's an _alternate_ one, yeah? This is the way your life would be if certain things had happened. There isn't another one going on at the same time. This is _it_."

"So, if I leave here…"

"… I don't think I'll remember meeting you, no," Bill finished for him. "I told you it didn't work the same as any magic we know. You've got to think about it differently."

"Well, that's certainly an understatement."

Bill laughed. "Listen, I should go." He held Remus's eyes for longer than he should have, and Remus knew he was supposed to extend an invitation, protest with an insistent, _No, stay with me, I don't want to be alone_, but he found he couldn't. Not yet. His body was still fixated on the younger man, wanting nothing but to recreate what they'd done the day before, but he couldn't let himself do that again.

He was here to find Sirius. That was all.

"Yeah, all right," he said softly, dropping his eyes. "Thanks for your help."

"Yeah, anytime," said Bill, not quite hiding the disappointment from his voice. "I'll… uh… see you later."

* * *

That night, Remus sat by the window in his bedroom and stared out at the night sky for hours, unable to fall asleep. He felt lonelier than he remembered feeling in years, but that wasn't it. There was a pull in his body, a scratching under his skin that was making him restless, and all he knew was that it had something to do with Bill Weasley.

Shadows moved across the bedroom floor, coating him in darkness before passing by. The clouds seemed just as restless as he was.

When at last a wisp of cloud shifted and he saw the outline of the moon through the mist, Remus could have kicked himself for not recognizing what he'd been feeling. Just like before, in that teenaged world with Sirius, he still wasn't a werewolf.

He should have been thrilled, jubilant even, to be able to sit there as a man and know for the first time since he was a child that the full moon was just beyond those clouds, but he found he couldn't. It wasn't quite full yet and most of it was still hidden, bathing him in blue shadow and washing him away, and all he could think was, _Everything I know is wrong_.

It made sense now, though, in a twisted sort of way: the restlessness, the scratching, the nearly-uncontrollable desire to mount Bill Weasley like an animal and fuck him blind. There was some trace of his wolf self on him in this universe, like a faint imprint that he could only feel, not see. But that didn't quite explain it, did it? He didn't go around in his former life desperate to shag any man who walked by.

There had to be something about Bill that brought it out in him, something that didn't exist in the Bill he thought he knew before, something –

His eyes locked on the sky again and his mouth fell open.

Somewhere, and in some other time… Bill Weasley was a werewolf as well.

* * *

"Luna! Come on, I know you're out there somewhere!"

Remus stood outside Grimmauld Place in the darkness of midnight, cupping his hands to his mouth and shouting into the distance.

"I have a question!" he called. "It's very important… Where the hell are you? _Luna_!"

"What are you, a fucking lunatic now? _Shut up_ and get inside!" an angry voice came up behind Remus and shoved him up the steps and back in the house. "What are you doing?" Bill exclaimed, making to slam the door but then thinking the better of it after eyeing a portrait in the hall, and quietly clicking it shut. He winced and dropped his voice. "You want everyone in the city to know we're in here?"

"You spelled it so I can't leave the yard," said Remus accusingly, and Bill rolled his eyes.

Remus hesitated, ran a hand over his face and then glanced down at Bill's hand where it still gripped his arm, already feeling his body heat. "I figured out why I want to fuck you so badly," he said, still trying to catch his breath. "Blonde girl, about fifteen. Luna Lovegood. You seen her around here? I have to ask her something."

"You– what? She's– yeah, friend of Neville's. Saw her around here a bit in the summer, but not since school started. You want to fuck me? Then– all right." Bill's reply was almost as confused as Remus's question, but he reached for his belt anyway, apparently not needing too many answers before agreeing to unbuckle.

"Portrait," Remus whispered, jerking a thumb at Mrs. Black. "Come upstairs." He grabbed Bill's arm and hauled him up to the third floor to find his bedroom bathed in the eerie glow of a full moon night. He hadn't slept at all, but had only sat by the window staring at the sky and running about a million things over in his mind. Luna was wrong: if he _knew_ about his other selves, and could act in ways that fit them, then surely he _could_ change something in the dimension he was in. He still felt like a werewolf even though he wasn't one, and so, it seemed, did Bill.

Perhaps all Sirius needed to know was that in another life, he was free. Perhaps that would be enough. If only Remus could visit him, talk to him…

"What do you want?" murmured Bill, who was already sucking at the back of Remus's neck and tugging at his trousers.

"You know why we like it rough?" Remus asked, arching back into Bill's body with a low groan. "You know why it was so good the other day, so much better than with anyone else?" He felt Bill's hot breath on his neck and shoulder and the insistent scrape of sharp teeth at his skin. He was already so hard he could barely stand it.

"Don't care," Bill muttered, pausing to tear the rest of his clothes off and begin pulling at Remus's shirt as well.

"Look." Remus pointed out the window at the shadow of the moon. Bill leaned against the wall with impatience but followed Remus's eyes. "Do you feel it?" breathed Remus, kicking his trousers off and pulling his shirt over his head. "If you don't think too hard about what you _should_ want, or what everyone else says you're _supposed_ to want… do you feel it? Those things you really _do_ want?" He pushed up against Bill's body from behind, grasping the younger man's cock and giving it a vicious tug.

"So you want to play werewolf today?" murmured Bill with a grin, turning from the window and pushing Remus back towards the bed. "On all fours, then."

Remus let himself be pushed, but only just. As soon as he hit the bed he grabbed Bill's arm and pulled him down with him, flipping him over and pressing a firm hand between the other man's shoulder blades. "Werewolf packs have hierarchies," he growled, "and you're not at the top." He hovered over Bill's back and let his cock trail just lightly up his arse. "Spread your legs," he ordered.

"Is that what I have to do to get to the top?" Bill muttered over his shoulder.

"Yes," said Remus, grasping Bill's ponytail again and pulling until he heard Bill moan. "Is that a problem?"

In reply, Bill twisted his head to pull his hair free of Remus's grasp and let his head fall to the pillow, rising to his knees and spreading them as far apart as he could.

This was the only possible world in which he would be able to do this, Remus decided, something he'd dreamed of for years but never asked Sirius to try. He placed his hands on Bill's arse and slid his thumbs down the cleft, pulling him apart with a certain lack of grace and licking his lips.

He bent his head, let a stream of hot breath hit Bill's tight hole, and shivered at the groan that fell from Bill's mouth. After the first lick, he found he couldn't stop.

His tongue slid into Bill's cleft and over the hole, teasing at the tight ring and lapping in short, quick strokes. Bill pushed his legs apart even further, his hands gripping the pillow hard as he writhed and tried to push back further onto Remus's mouth. Remus gripped his cheeks harder, spreading him wide open before finally plunging his tongue inside, holding Bill in place as his hips twisted.

"Fuck, are you…? Okay, God, just…"

He pressed in deeper, tasting Bill on his lips and tongue and seeking even more. It felt filthy and immoral and so unbelievably _good_ that Remus lost all control of himself, fucking Bill with his tongue and letting his whole face absorb every animalistic smell and taste and feel of it. He dragged his own cock against the sheets as his mouth worked, unable to resist the friction. Bill had already dropped a hand to his cock and was fisting himself hard, groaning his pleasure into the pillow and urging Remus to eat him – hard, fast, wet, _more_.

Remus withdrew from Bill's hole and gave one more slow, wet lick up the cleft as Bill came with a low groan, his arse clenching around Remus's mouth and the sheets covered in come. Remus rode it out with him before pulling his head up.

"Stay there," he ordered in a raspy voice, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and kneeling behind Bill. He spat into his hand and grabbed his own cock, fisting it hard. His other hand gripped Bill's back and held him in place, and as he licked his lips again and savoured the taste of Bill's body on them, he felt his own release bear down on him. He held himself over Bill's back and watched with fiery arousal as his come spurted in wet streaks over Bill's arse, seeping into the cleft and dripping down the backs of his thighs.

"Oh fuck," Bill groaned. "Oh God, yeah."

Remus collapsed over his back and let his spent cock nudge between Bill's cheeks, sliding through the wetness there at a leisurely pace as his pleasure crested and waned. He dragged his nose over Bill's back, inhaling deeply until he came to the man's ear where he whispered, "That's how werewolves fuck."

Bill's knees gave out at that and he sprawled on his stomach, letting Remus roll off of him and settle some distance away, staring out the window at the smoky light outside.

* * *

He'd come after Sirius and had found Bill instead.

He'd landed in not one but _two_ different worlds where he wasn't a werewolf, yet couldn't escape the imprint it left on his soul.

He'd felt love, desire, and everything in between. There was a man sleeping beside him who would do anything for him.

And still, behind closed eyes, all he saw was Sirius – that day after Azkaban, after the debacle with Snape and the kids at the Shack, after Remus had returned home to his ratty cottage and closed the curtains on his career as a teacher. The day Sirius knocked on the door. He was still filthy, covered in shadow and gazing down at the stone steps where they crumbled under the railing.

"Did you mean it when you said you forgive me?" he'd asked, his voice rough and unused. His hair fell across his face and Remus could have wept at the despair in his features. The great Sirius Black – always arrogant and swaggering, with his fuck-the-world youthful attitude… reduced to _this_.

"You fool," Remus had said with a sob he hadn't intended, grabbing the front of Sirius's tattered clothes and pulling him inside. That had been the day that Remus always went back to, the day that mattered more than their first kiss back at Hogwarts, or any number of frantic gropes by the Lake, or in the broom shed, or at the Shack. That had been the day that kept him going through all the darkness that lay ahead, the screaming and the nightmares and the sudden tantrums that sent Sirius storming up the stairs at Grimmauld Place with a shouted curse at his mother's portrait and an obscene gesture over his shoulder at the rest of the Order.

That day had to exist somewhere didn't it? There had to be a universe in which it was _that day_ all the time, where the two of them could just shutter themselves away in Remus's cottage and let the rest of the world fight the wars. They had fought enough, and Remus knew that Sirius, despite his bravado at the Department of Mysteries, couldn't take any more fighting.

_I won't let you sit in prison another day_.

But as soon as he thought it, a wisp of cloud shifted just so and the beam from the full moon hit his face. He felt the wave of air over him again and knew the world had shifted. He opened his eyes to an entirely new kind of panic, with a cold stone floor at his back and a voice in his ear that he didn't want to recognise as Sirius's.

***

**iii. so we struggle and we stagger | down the snakes and up the ladder | to the tower where the blessed hours chime**

"That will do, Severus," a silky voice called from across the room. "If you two cannot play nicely together, then I do not wish you to play at all."

Snape snarled his objection, but obediently rose and left the room.

"You'd get better results if you let me tie _him_ up," complained Sirius, tugging at the bonds holding his hands behind his back. "Fucking virgin has no idea how to Dom."

"Yes, but practice makes perfect, Sirius, surely you remember that?"

A predatory grin spread across Sirius's face. "Oh, I remember," he said softly.

"Good." The silky voice dropped to a quiet but firm command. "Come here."

With a wave of magic, Sirius's wrist bonds melted away. He flexed his hands for a second before rising from the chair and, still blindfolded, walked slowly towards the voice.

"If I fall and chip a tooth I won't be happy, Lucius," he said petulantly.

"A chipped tooth is a danger to my cock," said Lucius smoothly. "I shall have to find someone else to suck it if you should be so careless as to fall."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me."

Sirius stepped forward, his lips curved in a smile. He paused and sniffed the air. "Have we got company?" he asked, a dangerously hopeful note in his voice.

"Ah, very good. Just a little something I picked up in our last raid on Diagon Alley. A little present for you, in fact."

"For me?" Sirius bit his bottom lip in a gesture of shameless flirtation, letting it slide out from between his teeth as a seductive grin spread across his face. "You shouldn't have."

"I know," drawled Lucius, swirling his brandy. "Don't let it go to waste."

"Mm." Sirius sniffed again. "I know him, don't I?"

"Excellent indeed," said Lucius approvingly. "You went to school together. Same year, I believe."

"But not the same House," Sirius guessed.

"Obviously, no. If he'd been in Slytherin, he would be on his knees sucking my cock right now like you're about to be. Gryffindors only get to watch from filthy cages on the sidelines." He let out a mirthless laugh. "Gives them something to do while they heroically plan their escape, you see."

"Gryffindors," growled Sirius, continuing to step forward gingerly until he was only inches from Lucius. With another deep intake of breath he smiled, then fell to his knees.

On the other side of the room, behind a set of magically-reinforced steel bars, Remus watched the scene with barely suppressed horror.

* * *

His mind flashed back to that nauseating moving portrait Remus had seen in Grimmauld Place of Sirius and Lucius, arms draped around each other and green and silver ties hanging from their necks, smiling lazily at the camera. He tested his wrists and found that they were bound behind his back, and when he tried to speak he quickly discovered that he'd been hit with a Silencing charm.

And in front of him, Sirius was parting Lucius's thighs and sweeping the silky fabric of the man's dressing gown aside as he lowered his head.

Remus tried to look away but found his eyes were fixed on the scene. Lucius's cock rose magnificently from between his legs, like it deserved its own manor house and battalion of servants. It was thick and hard and even though Sirius remained blindfolded, he seemed to be salivating at the very presence of it. He leaned in and swept his flat tongue up the length, lightly holding the base steady as he licked and tasted.

"I think our guest is enjoying himself," Lucius said softly in that maddening tone, raising his eyes to Remus as he twirled a lazy hand in Sirius's hair.

Sirius only moaned around Lucius's cock, letting it slip all the way into his mouth and beginning to work his jaw in slow sucking motions. Lucius sighed and arched his back a bit, his features creasing with pleasure and his mane of blond hair catching the firelight as it fell around his shoulders. He held Remus's gaze and gave him a slow smile.

"I am sorry your hands are bound," he called to Remus, still smiling. "I should think you would like to touch yourself right now."

Remus kicked at the bars in anger and tried again to use his voice, but no sound came out. He mouthed a rude curse at Lucius and tried to keep his breathing steady and his eyes away from Sirius's bobbing head.

One minute he had been resting comfortably in bed next to Bill Weasley, and the next minute he was _here_? A prisoner in Lucius Malfoy's house, watching Sirius suck the man's cock not only as though he'd done it countless times before, but as though he _enjoyed_ it. Remus tried to stay calm and figure out his circumstances. Lucius looked slightly older than Remus remembered, maybe forty or so. Sirius… he could not place. He too was certainly not a teenager, but nor did his face (or what Remus had seen of it outside the blindfold) bear the lines and shadows of Azkaban.

"Turn your head a bit, Sirius," instructed Lucius, weaving his hand further into Sirius's dark hair and gently pressing. "Let our guest have a better look."

Remus saw Sirius grin around the cock in his mouth, pulling back for a second to wet his lips again before plunging down once more. He still couldn't see Remus, but he began making exaggerated noises, moaning around Lucius's cock and keeping his face angled as much towards Remus as he could.

"Oh, yes," breathed Lucius in a low voice, letting his head fall back against the armchair and his hair tangle as he shifted. His eyes dropped away from Remus and drifted closed, his jaw clamped shut and his breath coming deeply through his nose.

Sirius had to be spying for the Order in the Death Eaters' camp – that was the only explanation Remus could come up with. There must have been a way for the Order to place him and convince Lucius and the others to accept him; perhaps his history was slightly different in this universe, and Sirius had been in Slytherin. Dumbledore must have recruited him, just as he'd done with Snape, and –

Just then, Sirius shifted and moved his left arm up to cup Lucius's balls as he sucked, and Remus silently gasped at the dark ink that gleamed there. His heart began to race. Remus was a prisoner of Voldemort's, and Sirius was a Death Eater, in sexual service to Lucius Malfoy.

_Oh God no, not this_.

Lucius let out a long, slow groan and Remus jerked his eyes back to the scene in front of him and watched the man go rigid, his fingers tight in Sirius's hair and Sirius's throat working steadily to swallow Lucius's come. After several seconds he sat back on his heels and pulled the blindfold off, licking his lips and grinning seductively at Lucius. He rose to his feet and leaned over the sated form in the chair, tilting Lucius's chin up with a single finger and giving him a long, thorough kiss.

It was enough of a kiss to tell Remus that Sirius wasn't here against his will, that much was certain.

He broke off the kiss with a light tug at Lucius's bottom lip before straightening and turning to face Remus, sauntering over to the cage.

"You're positively indecent, Sirius," drawled Lucius from the armchair, and Sirius turned to catch a dressing gown Lucius threw from the sofa. He pulled it on but didn't make much effort to tie it around his waist, allowing Remus more than a glimpse at his body and his arousal as he spoke.

"So this is our prisoner," he said softly, but his voice did not match his eyes, which glared at Remus like cold steel. "You're right, I do know him." He grabbed hold of the bars of Remus's cage in both fists and leaned forward. "He and his friends used to practice their spells on me at Hogwarts, isn't that right, Lupin? _Levicorpus_ was a favourite, I remember."

Remus stared at him.

"Sirius," said Lucius in a bored voice, "do you really want to spend your time with our prisoner rehashing schoolyard grudges? It's a bit unattractive, really."

Sirius turned his head. "Then what do you suggest I do with him?" he asked slyly, dropping one hand from the bars of the cage to his cock and beginning to stroke.

"I know what I'd rather watch," said Lucius, and Sirius grinned.

"What do you think, Lupin," growled Sirius, turning back to the cage and glaring down at Remus's form lying with his hands bound on the floor. "Should I make you suck my cock for being such an arse to me at school?"

Remus tried to speak again but his voice was still useless. He could only shake his head slowly, his eyes on Sirius.

"No? That's not the right answer."

"If you're going to stand there and negotiate with him over it, I'm going to check on our other prisoners," said Lucius irritably, rising from his chair and knotting his dressing gown around himself before striding from the room.

Sirius turned to Remus. "If you keep your fucking mouth shut, I'll take that Silencing charm off," he offered.

Remus nodded, and with a wave of Sirius's wand he felt his throat loosen. He sighed, and then gestured at his bound hands. When Sirius shook his head, Remus gave him an impatient look. "I can't escape if I haven't a wand, can I?" he said. "Untie my hands, please."

Sirius crouched down in front of him, his eyes blazing. "I thought I told you not to speak," he said angrily.

But Remus wasn't listening. "Sirius!" he pleaded. "Padfoot, listen to me. This isn't you! We did know each other back at school, but it wasn't like that."

"Oh?" Sirius rose to his full height again, a smirk on his face. "Then what was it like? Let me guess: we were the best of friends, is that it?"

"We were," said Remus quietly, trying to force Sirius's gaze, "and I loved you."

Sirius looked stunned for a moment, but then he gathered himself and grinned again, a sickening, maniacal grin. "Then you won't object to this, will you?" he barked, spreading his gown open again and letting his cock hang in Remus's face.

"Not in principle, no," said Remus, trying to remain calm, "but not like this, either. You've never forced me before, and you won't start now." He took advantage of Sirius's stunned silence to keep talking. "Look at me," he urged, "and _think_. You can feel it, can't you? Really far away, somewhere deep down, you remember us. You have to remember that you loved me." He watched Sirius's cold grey eyes with desperation, hoping for a signal that Sirius too felt the imprint of their connection in another world, but none came.

Before he could say more, Lucius reappeared through the door, dragging two other captives behind him by his wand. He muttered a spell and threw them towards the bars, which melted away and reformed again in the blink of an eye as soon as the new prisoners had landed on the floor of the cage beside Remus. With another second's thought, he waved his wand at Remus and unfastened the bonds around his wrists.

"More heroic Gryffindors for you to play with," he said with a sly smile, pausing beside Sirius to lean close and lick an obscene trail up his neck. Sirius closed his eyes briefly and let out a satisfied groan, his face relaxing.

"Fuck them," murmured Sirius. "Come upstairs and let me play with _you_ some more."

Remus felt sick; he couldn't listen to another word of their nauseating flirtation. As they continued to whisper to each other and trail hands down half-naked bodies, Remus turned to his new companions, both of whom had landed in faceless heaps on the floor. As they slowly began to move and both a young blonde woman and a taller red-haired man came to life with pained groans, Remus felt his stomach churn again.

One was Bill Weasley, and the other was Luna Lovegood.

* * *

"Oh my God," he whispered, helping them to sit up. Sirius and Lucius had retreated to the other side of the room and didn't seem to be paying them much mind, lost as they were in each other.

Bill raised his head and got himself into a sitting position, slowly shifting his neck around to crack it and roll his shoulders. He looked at Remus and gave a heavy sigh. "Fuck. They got you, too?" he asked, his voice raw.

Remus nodded. "You look awful."

Bill gave him a weak smile. "Thanks." He crawled over to Remus and pushed his hair back, then leaned forward and closed his eyes, letting their foreheads touch. "Fuck, you're here. Okay, are you all right?"

Remus pulled back, startled. "I'm– yeah. Are we–" He clamped his mouth closed. _Of course we are_, a voice nagged in the back of his head. As if this entire fucking thing wasn't complicated enough. As if watching Sirius suck Lucius Malfoy's cock hadn't been enough for one day. Another universe without Sirius, and Remus was _still_ shagging Bill Weasley. "How long have you been here?" he asked instead.

"The whole time. It was just after the last moon when they got me coming out of Gringotts, right? Feels like the next one's coming fast."

"The moon?" Remus's mouth fell open.

"Yeah. Bones are fucking killing me. Don't suppose you smuggled me in some Wolfsbane, eh?" He gave another half-hearted smile, his hand trailing down Remus's face.

"I– oh God."

"Don't sound so… surprised… Professor," a small voice chimed in with obvious difficulty. "You knew he was… a werewolf… didn't you?"

Remus whirled around to face Luna and thought his heart might finally break. This was too much. Her face was bruised and there was blood streaking her blonde hair. Her clothes had been torn in ways he didn't want to think about, and every breath seemed to make her wince. "Oh, Luna," he muttered. "How did you get here? You have to leave! You know how to leave, don't you? What you told me before, about leaving your mother–"

She coughed. "It's easier to escape some worlds than others," she said simply.

"Like the really bad ones?" he said bitterly.

"The last one wasn't so bad for you, was it?" she asked, and Remus glanced at Bill, feeling his face heat.

"That's not– how do you know about– _Luna_." He stopped at the look on her face, then crawled over to hear and stroked her hair. "Are you all right?"

She smiled faintly. "No, I don't think so."

"Okay, listen, we'll get you out of here, I promise, we just have to–"

"We've been trying to get out for weeks, Remus," said Bill, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him around to face him. "There aren't enough Order members left to come looking anymore, and with You-Know-Who getting so strong, our magic is too weak to do much."

"So we're going to die here?" He whirled back to Luna. "You're going to let that _happen_?" he cried. "We can _do something_, Luna, that's the whole point of us being here! We can– look, we can take Bill and move somewhere else, we can–"

"You can go back," she said quietly, "or you can go home. There is a way for you to get out of here, but you _can't change_ anything. I told you that before."

Remus fell back against the bars of the cage, sweeping a hand over his face. "Everywhere I go keeps getting worse," he muttered. "Voldemort will win because there's no James and no Harry, or Sirius is in Azkaban and Ginny's dead, or–"

Bill's eyes widened.

"–Sirius is a Death Eater, and he's fucking Lucius Malfoy?" Remus felt his voice rise. "_What_, Luna, am I supposed to go back to?"

"You can go home," she repeated softly, taking a deep breath, and Remus's jaw clenched.

"No," he said firmly, shaking his head. "He's dead there. I saw him die. He's just– he's _dead_, all right? Nothing is as bad as that." He stared up at the ceiling.

There was a long, painful silence, the bars of their cage pulsing with their collective anger and grief.

"Someone is dead everywhere," Luna pointed out at last.

"Who's dead?" asked Bill in a quiet voice, his eyes darting between the two of them. "And what happened to Ginny?"

Remus waved his hand impatiently. "No, she's fine – I mean, she's probably fine now, it was a different–"

"Having a cosy little Gryffindor summit over here, are we?" a snarling voice interrupted, and Remus looked up heavily to see Sirius returning, now fully dressed and somehow looking much more menacing. "Shut the fuck up," he barked at them.

"I'm not a Gryffindor," said Luna sadly, shaking her head as though this sort of mistake caused her daily grief.

"What's that?" said Sirius, his eyebrows raised and a delighted smile forming on his face. "Not a Gryffindor?" He turned to call over his shoulder. "Lucius! We have one here who says she's not a Gryffindor!" He began to laugh.

"Indeed?" Lucius's voice called back from the other room. "Well, we don't want her feeling out of place."

"No, we don't," said Sirius, looking down at Luna with perverse interest.

Remus's stomach churned as he looked over at Luna and found she had gone a shade paler.

"All right, if you must," said Lucius in a bored voice. "She was really only a spare."

Sirius turned back to the cage and the cold gleam in his eyes nearly stopped Remus's heart. He pointed his wand at Luna and before Remus or Bill had time to react, the words were out of his mouth.

"_Avada Kedavra_!"

* * *

Time passed in blackness, and Remus could feel only the cold stone at his back and hear the whisper of air moving above him. There was no sight and no need for it.

_Someone is dead everywhere_, she had said, and then she swam into focus out of the darkness behind his eyes.

She was made of ink and water, watching him carefully from behind stray strands of hair with eyes as blank and knowing as a Thestral's. She stood with the creature like an angel with God's own steed, and Remus finally understood what she had been trying to tell him all along.

There was only one thing he could change, and only one way to get out.

The only question was how he could ever make Bill understand.

* * *

He opened his eyes to find both Luna and Bill gone. The stale cage swelled around him as he rolled over and pushed himself up, where he saw that Sirius was sitting on a chair on the other side of the bars, watching him intently.

"Why would you say something like that?" he said quietly, and Remus scrubbed at his face.

"Like what?" he sighed. He was tired and aching and he couldn't do this anymore. It was too hard to look at Sirius and see nothing but a killer.

"That you'd loved me."

Remus leaned forward slowly, rising to his knees and shuffling over to the bars. He feared that any sudden movements may drive Sirius away again, and they would never be able to have this conversation. "Because it was true," he replied, trying to keep his voice even. "It was a different… time, but it was _us_, and you were with me, and we–"

"We what?" Sirius's voice was a mix of scepticism and curiosity.

What could he say? We fucked like mad rabbits? We made each other so hard in class that we were always the last to get up from our desks to leave? We could understand each other without even speaking, and _every time I touched you all I could think about was how to get more of you, how to swallow you inside me and keep you there forever_?

"We would have died for each other," he said instead, his eyes trying to accept the Dark Mark on Sirius's arm and the hard lines of cruelty on his face.

And it was true, he realised. It wasn't just fucking or touching or getting hard. It was about the dark corners of the castle, the places where they held each other and Sirius's hand slid into Remus's hair and around his waist, their lips hovering inches from each other as one scuffed shoe tried to press up against another on the stone floor. It was about the way they fit together in silhouette, when James and Peter weren't there to mock them and the grown-ups weren't there to tell them they were young and misguided and had the wrong idea entirely about the way love was supposed to be.

It was about a feeling that didn't require any words or actions or make any demands on them at all. It was just _there_. That was the whole point of it.

Sirius was still looking at him, as if there was some small part of him that wanted to understand, some long dead piece of soul that might, through a miracle of the universe, remember what Remus remembered.

"If I hurt you back at school," Remus added, "I'm sorry."

He met Sirius's eyes and held them, pouring everything he could into that gaze, into making Sirius understand. Sirius's face began to soften and he scratched at his left arm, the fingers of his other hand absently scraping the skin.

"It's like a prickle, right?" prompted Remus. "You can feel that something's not right. You feel attracted to me, don't you?" He moved closer, emboldened by Sirius's continued silence. "It's another life, another universe, but you _loved_ me, you have to believe that. You weren't a Death Eater, we were both in Gryffindor, and–"

"Sirius." A cold voice interrupted him. Remus closed his mouth and looked up to see Lucius's angry face hovering over the bars. "Not letting the prisoners negotiate, are you?"

He whirled on Remus and with a muttered spell and the careful aim of his wand, bonds flew out of the tip and through the bars, wrapping around Remus's wrists again and pinning him against the back of the cage. His arms were stretched out on either side of him and his legs splayed out where he sat.

"Come," Lucius continued, drawing an arm around Sirius's shoulders and leading him away. "It's almost full moon, and we must give our guests some time alone to… _play_." He placed oily emphasis on the final word, and Remus steeled himself.

Out of the shadows, Lucius grabbed the man he had just escorted back into the room and threw him through the bars again with the captivity spell. With a howl of anguish, Bill landed on the floor of the cage.

* * *

Bill pushed himself up to his hands and knees and let his head drop between his shoulders, his breath coming in frantic huffs.

"Bill," said Remus quietly, "look at me."

When Bill turned his head, Remus saw that his eyes were already bloodshot and the stubble at his chin had thickened. "We're fucked, Remus," he said in a low, wavering voice. "They've locked you up in here with me, and the full moon's coming fast."

"Listen to me," Remus urged. "I know more about this than you think I do."

"Yeah?" Bill laughed, a cruel hoot of surprise. "You a werewolf now?"

"Sort of," Remus said, giving him a pointed look, and Bill stopped laughing.

"What?"

"Do you trust me?" he asked, wanting nothing more than to crawl over to take Bill's head in his hands and force his gaze. He tugged uselessly at his bonds.

Bill's fingers clenched against the cold floor and he sat back on his heels, trembling from head to foot. "Not if you're going to tell me you're ready to be all noble or something and sacrifice yourself."

"That's exactly what I'm going to tell you."

"No!" With barely a warning, Bill surged forward, wrapping one hand around Remus's throat and turning blazing eyes on him.

His breath was coming thick and fast through his nostrils, his face only inches from Remus's, and Remus could tell they didn't have much time. Bill was already fighting it, the moon and the urges and whatever was in the potion they probably gave him to speed the whole process up, but he wouldn't be able to fight for long.

With a groan of frustration he released his hold on Remus and backed away, hands tugging at his hair. "You have to find a way to tie me up," he said miserably. "Transfer those bonds to me. Otherwise…"

"Otherwise _nothing_," insisted Remus, and suddenly, realising he would never be able to explain to Bill exactly why he needed this, he resorted to the only other tactic he could think of. "I want you to bite me," he said in a low voice. "Always have."

Bill stared at him.

"You're always so _fucking_ polite," Remus continued, trying to remember the right words. "You're angry at the world, and this war, but you won't let it out. Not unless I make you go there."

Bill cradled his arms around his body now, scratching absently at his back and shoulders but not tearing his eyes from Remus. His chest rose and fell more quickly now, and his eyes were fading to yellow.

"I want you to go there," Remus whispered fiercely, feeling his own desire mount at the words. "I want it rough, like the wolf would want it. I want you to–"

"No!" Bill shouted again, backing away from Remus even further. "Shut the fuck up! You don't mean any of this. I don't know what you're doing, but you don't–"

"Yes, I do," Remus shouted back. "I _want_ this! If you're a werewolf, I want to be one with you," he added. "That's what– that's–" He swallowed, starting to feel sick. This wasn't right, and Bill didn't deserve any of it, but it was the only solution Remus had. "That's what will keep us together when this is all over," he finished, and he saw the moment when Bill understood – as much of it as he could, at least.

"I can't stop it," Bill whispered, clenching and unclenching his fists almost subconsciously. "You don't know what you're saying."

"We can't get out," Remus said firmly. "They've made sure this happens, so all we can do is make it happen our way."

"You're insane," said Bill weakly, shaking his head.

"And you're hard as a broomstick, I can see it," Remus pointed out, nodding towards Bill. "Admit you want me," he growled, "and let's just fucking _do it_."

There was one more moment of thick silence as the bars glowed around them and only Bill's heaving breaths filled the cage. Remus waited.

And then, with a desperate cry Bill pounced on him, ripping at his already torn clothes and letting wet lips slide roughly over Remus's neck and jaw. "Can't stop," he said with an agonised moan, and Remus could feel both his arousal and his determination to fight it.

"Don't stop," Remus murmured, tugging at his wrist bonds. "Don't you _dare_ fucking stop. I need you to do this."

"Fucking… crazy…" Bill protested half-heartedly, but Remus knew he would do it. The moon plus whatever potion they had given him would ensure that he would turn unspeakably violent if he didn't get sex tonight, and Remus needed both – the sex and the violence – if his guess was right. He kept up the encouragement.

"So hard," he muttered, lifting his hips up. "Come on, get them off."

Bill tore at Remus's trousers and finally dragged them halfway down his legs, growling at the sight of Remus's cock as it sprang free and bobbed in front of Bill's mouth. He didn't even seem to think about it before he swallowed it whole, his lips stretched wide and Remus arching back with a shout of shock and pleasure. Bill worked at him roughly, any skill he may have exhibited in the previous universe apparently melting away as teeth scraped and his hand gripped Remus's cock hard enough to cause pain.

"Good," Remus said with a struggle, "okay, now you. Get your robes off."

Bill let his lips slide slowly up Remus's length, wet drops of saliva clinging to the sensitive flesh before he stripped his own clothes off and again knelt between Remus's legs. "Got to fuck you," Bill said, his voice hard with need now as the moon rose ever higher in the sky. Remus had to hurry. He couldn't risk taking too long and having Bill transform first.

"I don't think so," he said sternly, wincing at the thought of the damage Bill could do to him in this state. "Suck my cock again," he ordered, "and then you're going to ride me."

Bill let out a _howl_ at the words, scrambling down to lick at Remus's cock again and bury his face deep in the smell and taste of it. Remus squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he had use of his hands so he didn't feel quite so vulnerable, but recalling every sensation of what it felt like to fuck on the night of a full moon, right before a transformation. It was mesmerising, such a violent, full-body experience that he never let himself do it too often, despite Sirius's protests.

_Come on, Moony, fuck me like the wolf would_.

He gasped at the memory of the way Sirius used to feel around him on those nights, when they were young and willing to take the risk. When he opened his eyes again, it was to the sight of Bill's head moving furiously in his lap, and Sirius's stony grey eyes watching him out of the darkness.

* * *

Remus resisted the urge to close his eyes, turn away, shove Bill off and cover himself, crawling over to the bars and pleading with Sirius to forgive him. But it didn't matter here; Sirius didn't remember their relationship anyway, and he couldn't live in a world where Sirius was a Death Eater. He had to do this.

"That's good," he murmured to Bill, still holding Sirius's gaze over Bill's head. "Get it wet, it's all we've got."

Bill spent another minute working even harder to coat Remus's cock with saliva, licking him obscenely and growling deep in his throat. Remus let the heat of it course through his body; despite his best efforts not to, he _was _enjoying this. Just like before, he knew there was something in his body that simply responded to Bill Weasley this way and likely always would.

But he pushed those thoughts down and focused again on Sirius's eyes watching them.

Bill sat up and moved forward on his knees, straddling Remus's lap as his hands continued to roam over Remus's body, scratching at his chest, arms, and shoulders. Bill was growing stronger, Remus could tell, his arms bulging more and his fingernails raking harder with each passing minute. He positioned himself over Remus's cock and hesitated a fraction of a second, drawing Remus's eyes to his in a final moment of consciousness of what he was doing.

"I can't," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't fucking make me do this."

"Do it," he urged, straining forward as much as he could in his bonds to bite at Bill's neck and aggravate the wolf further. God, he needed his hands free, to rake his own nails down Bill's back and push him down onto Remus's cock.

As if reading his mind, or himself desperate to see Remus do just that, the shadowy figure that was Sirius raised his wand at that point at aimed at Remus's bonds. "_Libero_," he murmured, and Remus moaned in relief as his arms dropped from the wall. His eyes caught Sirius's again over Bill's shoulder and he put everything he could into that one look: _I'm sorry_ and _Please understand_ and _I'm doing this because I love you_.

And then he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Bill, feeling the man's breath heavy on his neck and pushing his body down onto Remus's slick cock. He knew Bill would neither need nor want excessive preparation at this point; the more it hurt, the more he would want it. And _God_, he did feel good, tight and hot and not quite wet enough to slide freely. He sucked Remus in until his hips were spread wide and his balls rested on Remus's clenched stomach, fully seating himself and grinding down hard.

There was no more time; it had to happen quickly. Bill was beyond coherence now, thrashing over Remus's body as his thighs pumped up and down and the growing hair on his chest bristled over Remus's smooth skin. Bill's cock was hard and red between their bodies, and Remus reached down to grab it, fisting it roughly while his free hand scratched down Bill's back and he poured as much encouraging filth into Bill's ear as he could think of.

"Gonna fuck you so hard, wolf," he whispered harshly. "Tear you up and make you bleed, make you come all over me. Fucking animal, you are. Will you howl for me? Gonna make you scream and come and bite me, you want that? I want it hard, just do it, bite me…"

He pushed his hips up and felt his own orgasm bearing down on him, with Bill sweaty and angry and riding him hard. He pumped Bill's cock furiously and grabbed him by the back of the head, pressing Bill's mouth to his neck.

Bill let out a muffled groan, come splattering Remus's hand and running over onto his stomach as Bill continued to pump his hips, and Remus felt his own cock thicken and go stiff inside Bill's body. He struggled to open his eyes and catch Sirius's unreadable gaze one more time as he pressed Bill's head in hard, feeling the teeth begin to tear at the skin of his shoulder.

_I'm a werewolf, and you're dead. It's the only way_.

The last thing he felt was the blazing heat of his orgasm shifting to white pain in his shoulder, as Bill's teeth sank into him at the moment of their release and the saliva of the werewolf bled into his body. He clutched Bill tightly as the world faded to black, hoping that it would be enough to do it at last, that it would be enough to send him home.

* * *

**iv. i loved you when our love was blessed | i love you now there's nothing left |** **but sorrow and a sense of overtime**

The battle raged around them, as that popular phrase went, and Remus did the best he could in the circumstances, firing off jets of green and red and sometimes gold from his wand and hoping they hit the right targets. He'd done this sort of thing before, after all, though not for fifteen years.

_One, two, three_. The seconds whipped by like cold rain, lancing his face and numbing his fingers.

_Four, five, six_. Bella laughed. Harry turned. Remus closed his eyes.

_Seven_.

Sirius fell.

_Eight_.

Remus held Harry tight enough to bruise him, clutching at James and Lily and Sirius and everyone else they both wanted desperately to hold onto. Harry shouted and kicked and struggled and he was _just_ as reckless as Sirius, with exactly the same wrong instincts in a battle. "There's nothing you can do, Harry," he said firmly, and now he knew it to be true. "It's too late… He's gone."

_Nine_.

This time, there was no nine.

* * *

Grieving could only come after the battle, or even after the war. Or maybe never.

The unwounded staggered back to a house aching with loss. Even the loudest of the shrieking portraits was still. Curtains refused to rustle and the leaky faucet in the kitchen held its breath out of respect for the silence.

"Did anyone see Luna?" Remus asked urgently once they were home and his mind remembered. "Luna Lovegood – where is she?"

"The kids are all fine," said Tonks wearily, her hand shaking around the kettle. "They all got out."

He sat back in his chair and released a slow breath. _She's alive_. He closed his eyes.

They made tea and waited for word from Dumbledore. Bill Weasley arrived sometime later and took quick stock of the group around the table. Remus caught his eye and held it, for want of the right thing to say.

"Remus," he said quietly, crouching down beside him and grabbing his hand. "I heard about– Just. I'm so sorry."

Remus only nodded, aware of the others' eyes avoiding him. "It was his time," he said at last, surprising himself with the steadiness of his voice. "It couldn't have been any other way."

He saw Bill's brows draw together slightly, but the other man did not question him.

"How is Fleur?" he asked after a moment.

"She… she's fine," murmured Bill, perplexed. He squeezed Remus's hand. "Listen, come back to the Burrow, stay with us for a bit, yeah?"

Remus smiled. "She's fine," he repeated with a nod. "Good. That's good. No, I think I'll stay here, but thank you." He dropped Bill's hand and rose from the table, giving the others a faint smile as he headed towards the kitchen door.

"Remus–"

He stopped and held up a hand, shaking his head. "It couldn't have been any other way," he repeated firmly, and then opened the door and went upstairs.

* * *

He still thinks about the veil sometimes, at night when shadows creep up the walls and every wisp of cloud could, in theory, obscure a whole other world. He feels Sirius the strongest on those nights.

"Hey, Moony," he whispers, his voice raspy in the dark. "Budge over, yeah? My arse is freezing over here."

Remus smiles and shifts in the bed, feeling Sirius's anchoring weight behind him and a strong arm draped across his chest, like when they were younger and still trying to grow facial hair and could just lie together for hours, warm and drowsy. They both stop shivering and fall into a dark silence, their breath fogging the barrier that divides them.

_It's just a theory, of course_, Luna's voice told him in his head, _but the way it refracts makes sense, I think. Tilt the world a little bit to the right and you get red, a little bit to the left and you get blue_. She shrugged at him and then turned her attention to refastening a loose vegetable to her earring.

_Like magic?_ he asked her, stupidly.

_No_, she said with a smile and shake of her head, as she faded from view.

_Like glass_.

 

-fin-

 

**Notes:**  
1\. "Come on, you can do better than that!" / "There's nothing you can do, Harry." / "It's too late… He's gone."  
Quoted from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling, UK edition, pp. 710-11.

2\. Song lyrics are from Leonard Cohen, "Closing Time."


End file.
